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Copyright N° 



CQKFIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE PRECEDING GOD 



THE PRECEDING GOD 



By 



Rev. JAMES TAYLOR DICKINSON, D. D. 

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THE JUDSON PRESS 

1701 CHESTNUT STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA. 






Copyright, 1921, by 
GILBERT N. BRINK, Secretary 

Published February, 1921 



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FOREWORD 



This volume is published at the request of friends in the 
three churches which the author served as pastor covering 
a period of about thirty-one years — the North Orange 
Baptist Church of Orange, New Jersey, 1886-1903; the 
First Baptist Church of Rochester, New York, 1903-1912 ; 
the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church of Brooklyn, New 
York, 1913-1918. 

The author cannot express his loving, grateful mem- 
ories of these churches and of the three country churches 
in Virginia where he preached at the beginning of his 
ministry. As expressing his own feelings, he can quote 
the Latin motto of which Charles Kingsley was fond, 
" Amavimus, Amamus, Amabimns!' 

Most of the contents of this volume have already been 
printed in " The Examiner/' the more recent " Watch- 
man-Examiner," the " Religious Herald," or elsewhere. 
The tribute to Rev. Dr. Alfred E. Dickinson, the author's 
father, appeared first in volume five of " Virginia Baptist 
Ministers," and is reprinted here by permission of 
Dr. George Braxton Taylor, the editor of this valuable 
series of biography, and of the publishers, the J. P. 
Bell Co. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 
SERMONS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Preceding God 3 

II. Filled With the Holy Spirit 19 

III. According to Your Faith 31 

IV. What Shall We Think of Heaven ? 41 

V. This Same Jesus 54 

VI. The Love of God Shed Abroad 64 

VII. Making a Fresh Start in Prayer 73 

VIII. Christmas and Human Joy 83 

IX. Greatness Out of Gentleness 91 

X. Christ the Door 99 



PART II 

ADDRESSES 

I. A Knight of the Sixteenth Century .... 107 

II. Poetry and Life 121 

III. Lincoln and Washington 126 

IV. The Religiousness of Theodore Roosevelt 131 
V. Two Hands of Appeal in Foreign Missions 134 

VL Memories and Impressions 142 



CONTENTS 

PART III 
TRIBUTES AND APPRECIATIONS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Rev. Alfred E. Dickinson, D. D 151 

II. Samuel Colgate 161 

III. Howard Osgood, the Man and the Teacher 168 

IV. A Tribute to Two Leaders 172 

V. Dr. Thomas O. Conant 176 

VI. William J. Wright 180 

VII. Isaac Edwin Gates 185 

VIII. Gardner Colby and Hayward Smith 188 



PART IV 

LETTERS FROM ABROAD 

I. A Visit to Bethlehem 193 

II. A Winter Journey to Italian Shores .... 198 

III. Happy Days in Sunny Sicily 202 

IV. Letter from Rome 207 

V. Rome — the Hill-towns — Florence 212 



PART I 



SERMONS 



I 

THE PRECEDING GOD * 

"Thou goest before me with the blessings of goodness "~ 
Psalm 21 : 3. 

" He goeth before them."— John 10 : 4. 

u But after I am risen again, I will go before you into Galilee." 

—Matthew 26 : 32. 

ASSEMBLED here this morning, the past and the 
present and the future rise before our vision and 
stir our souls. Again we see the heroic men who founded 
the three great missionary Societies of our beloved 
denomination and hear their words of prayer and appeal 
and holy confidence. We look out upon the world as it is 
today, and behold its sins, its perils, its glorious possi- 
bilities, and from every land and hamlet hear voices call- 
ing for the evangel of divine love. Far into the future 
we gaze, and with enraptured hearts behold the earth 
redeemed from evil, transfigured to holiness, and hear the 
song of the triumphant soldiers of the cross. 

For such an occasion surely we need not so much 
ingenious human speculations, not so much historical sta- 
tistics, as some supreme teaching of God's Word. In early 
English history, after the death of King Alfred the Great, 
there were often times of terrible peril and discourage- 
ment. When the people and the leaders knew not what to 
do and were near to despair, the cry would arise, " Give 

1 Annual missionary sermon at the Baptist Anniversaries at Buffalo, May 
»4, 1903. 

3 



4 THE PRECEDING GOD 

us a word of our Alfred to cheer and guide." A message 
throbbing with comfort and inspiration from our Divine 
Redeemer and King our hearts crave chiefly as we front 
the most glorious endeavor conceivable — the bringing of 
the entire world to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. Back 
of all questions of practical organization, or systematic 
benevolence, or doctrinal divergence, there are deep and 
lofty and immediate relationships of the soul to God 
which kindle the strongest and only permanent enthusi- 
asm in Christian service and sacrifice. Our texts suggest 
these higher heights and fellowships of the soul. 

The first text is from the Twenty-first Psalm, which is 
also Messianic, and brings before us the Hebrew king 
and the rejoicing people. In the preceding psalm the 
king is pictured as going forth to battle, and the people 
cry : " The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble. Grant 
thee according to thy own heart." In the Twenty-first 
Psalm we have the chorus of praise to God sung by 
the whole congregation as the king returns victorious: 
" Thou hast given him his heart's desire ; for thou pre- 
ventest him with the blessings of goodness," More 
literally, " thou goest before him with the treasures of 
goodness." So Jesus, speaking of the relationship be- 
tween himself as Divine Shepherd and his disciples, says, 
" He goeth before them." Four times in the Gospels 
of Matthew and Mark Jesus is spoken of after his resur- 
rection as going before his disciples. 

The command, " Go, preach, make disciples," is of 
most urgent, momentous importance. The assurance that 
God, the living Christ, " goes before " is just as mo- 
mentous and important for all our work. By the side of 
the human duty, " Go," let us place the divine assurance, 
" I go before." Our theme, then, is, The going before of 
God with blessings of goodness, preparing man's way, 



THE PRECEDING GOD 5 

giving success and power and glory to his efforts. Let us 
attempt to climb to various heights of thought and emo- 
tion and historical fact and blessed anticipation, each 
marked by divine precedence and provision and power 
for the human follower. 

In general, there is the sublime fact of an infinite, all- 
powerful, all-wise, all-loving God existing before this 
earth and its inhabitants. Creation is not the making of 
something out of nothing. Ever true is the old Latin 
proverb, Ex nihilo nihil fit. " In the beginning God." 
Thus before man from all eternity existed the glorious 
God, fountain of life, source of all goodness and beauty. 

More specifically, we observe that in the physical 
world God preceded man with treasures of goodness. 
The Genesis narrative tells of the stages in the divine 
creative work (and with the account agree in essence the 
teachings of the best science), and one of the notable 
facts of the narrative is that God made a good and 
wonderful world before the creation of man. Solid earth, 
gleaming water, bright sun and moon and stars, plants 
and flowers, birds of song, flashing fish, and animals of 
the land, all things serviceable and glorious were made. 
Then, then came man, the crown of creation — man, the 
guest for whom God had prepared so wonderful a ban- 
quet. Throughout all the centuries since every science 
has been a record and a witness of God's going before 
man with illimitable physical blessings. Invention and 
discovery have simply been the taking hold of the divine 
provision. Treasures of wood and iron and marble and 
silver and gold and flashing gems, treasures of wheat and 
oil and fruit, treasures of steam and electric power — 
these God had placed here awaiting man ; and who would 
dare prophesy what other treasures await him in earth 
and air and water? 



6 THE PRECEDING GOD 

But with greater treasures still in a man's mental and 
spiritual equipment did God go before. Plan and pattern 
must always precede performance. Before man went 
the design of man, the image of man in the holy, wise, 
loving, mighty God, after whose likeness man's essential 
nature was made. Hence the glories and possibilities 
stored up in the human soul — thought, and love, and 
imagination, and joy, and memory, and hope, and aspir- 
ations Godward and eternityward. Whence comes all 
that is thus highest and best? Not from the dust. We 
do not, cannot accept that materialism which has been 
aptly called a " Gospel of dirt." From the Infinite Spirit 
must come all the movements and upreachings of our 
spirits. Goethe said that his best thoughts "came like 
the singing birds from out of the immensities of the air, 
and all that he knew about them was when they an- 
nounced their presence. He did not make them; they 
came." Often with us truth, power, joy, aspirations 
find us rather than we find them. As Jesus in the training 
of the Twelve went before them, leading them on from 
one high level of truth to another, so God goes before 
us beckoning us on, quickening us with 

Authentic tidings of invisible things, • 
Of ebb and flow and ever-during power, 
And central peace subsisting at the heart 
Of endless agitation. 

This is in accord with the great doctrine and fact of 
the Holy Spirit. He goes before us with light and peace 
and power for those who follow stedfastly on. Hence 
Christ said to his disciples as to the sharp trials awaiting 
them : " But when they deliver you up, take no thought 
how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given you in 
that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that 






THE PRECEDING GOD 7 

speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in 
you." Again : " But the Comforter, which is the Holy 
Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall 
teach you all things. He will guide you into all 
truth." 

But man is more than a physical being, and he has 
another differentiating characteristic besides his intel- 
lectual and spiritual aptitudes; he is a sinful creature, 
with a heavy sense of being at war with his highest 
nature. So far as we know, this earth is the only planet 
marred by sin and man the only creature with a bitter 
sense of moral dereliction. But even before man's sin 
there was provided man's salvation; treasures of re- 
demptive grace preceded him. His salvation was a fore- 
thought, not an afterthought. Christ's redemptive work 
was wrought out in the divine thought even before man's 
advent. How rich and wonderful are the Scripture 
teachings concerning this ! " I have loved thee with an 
everlasting love." " That was the true light which 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world." " He 
hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the 
world." " The Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world." So when a child is born into this world, Christ 
is there by the cradle with spiritual grace. Jesus during 
his earthly life touched every phase of human experi- 
ence — childhood, youth, manhood, joy, sorrow, tempta- 
tion, physical and mental toil, loneliness, death. He is 
God's Word, his incarnate, uttered thought. As Christ 
touched and transfigured all of human life, so with 
sovereign grace God goes before the individual and the 
race, the same yesterday and today and forever in his 
redemptive work. Can such everlasting love be baffled? 
Impossible, cry the deepest instincts of the soul, the wisest 
reasonings of the intellect. 



8 THE PRECEDING GOD 

What a sense of might and irresistibleness comes to 
one as he watches the broad expanse of the Mississippi 
near New Orleans and thinks of the waters of a continent 
far back among distant States poured into it ! But in the 
vast stream of divine grace the infinite resources of an 
eternity back of us have poured and the momentum 
of an eternity of life-giving power is working for us. 

Turning from the sublime teachings of Scripture and 
Christian faith to the evolution of history, we find most 
impressive illustrations of how the divine power and 
wisdom and love are ever leading onward humanity's 
march. The course of human history is often dark with 
terrible tragedies and reactions, but through the ages one 
increasing purpose runs fraught with blessing and grad- 
ual uplift. Each great crisis that seems to foretoken 
irrevocable disaster is marked by a supernatural presence 
which brings blessing out of apparent ruin. The early 
subapostolic church was persecuted with such diabolical 
cruelty that it seemed as if in a few years there would be 
no Christians left on the earth, but soon after the faithful 
disciples had preached the Cross everywhere and almost 
the whole world had yielded to its message. 

In medieval times the power and beauty of the 
primitive faith had apparently gone to return no more; 
deep darkness, with only here and there a light, covered 
the face of Europe; some thought the end of the world 
was near. In overwhelming depression, Martin Luther 
said, as he surveyed the intellectual and spiritual decay of 
the church and the wickedness of the world : " Asia and 
Africa have no gospel; another one hundred years and 
all will be over; God's Word will disappear for want of 
any to preach it." But, behold, soon a new and glorious 
chapter opens for humanity. In close proximity of time 
Luther proclaims the fresh, strong gospel of Christ, the 



THE PRECEDING GOD 9 

art of printing with movable types is invented, and 
Columbus discovers a new world. Urged on by a trinity 
of forces, human history starts afresh with a new world 
in which to work out the old problems, a new multiplica- 
tion of the Bible for universal distribution, and, above all, 
a new return to the redemptive grace of the living 
Christ. 

In the early part of the last century, infidelity, skepti- 
cism, and a cold deism were wide-spread throughout our 
own country, and accompanying them gross immoral- 
ities. From his home in Virginia Thomas Jefferson wrote 
to John Adams in Massachusetts, " You and I will live 
to see the time when every child born in America will be 
a Unitarian. " How grievously the great statesman erred 
when, leaving politics, he assumed the role of a religious 
prophet! Not many years after Jefferson's prediction a 
great wave of evangelical fervor swept over the country, 
with mighty revivals and spiritual blessings, and Uni- 
tarianism has long been a waning force. The history of 
civilization and of the Christian church marvelously illus- 
trates the divine assurance through the prophet Isaiah: 
" I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; 
I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will 
make darkness light before them, and crooked things 
straight." 

But in missionary work, in the evangelization of the 
world, both at home and abroad, do we behold the most 
remarkable confirmations of our theme. And where in all 
the realm of literature shall we find such romances, such 
poems, such histories of sublime heroism, such heavenly 
philosophy as in the annals of the missionary enterprise 
at home and abroad ? Oh for a Milton or a Carlyle to 
depict with winged words the patience and the courage 
and the celestial victories of the men and women who in 



10 THE PRECEDING GOD 

earth's darkest places have carried the message of light ! 
The threefold assurance that the Father, the Son, and the 
Spirit will go before us are witnessed on every page of 
these annals. In the moving, the compulsion, of the heart 
of the worker we see the divine preparation. Sometimes 
humble men are chosen, sometimes brilliant ones, but 
the call is such as to exalt the influence of the super- 
natural. Carey, the shoemaker, was deeply oppressed by 
his seeming unfitness for the great work into which he 
was drawn, and would have stayed in his lowly shop; 
but a heavenly gravitation drew him on and on, until he 
became the founder of modern missions. Judson seemed 
to be bound to his own land by the great openings for his 
splendid gifts and by every human reason ; but a beckon- 
ing hand — the hand with the wound-print in it — led him 
across the seas and to distant Burma. Count Zinzendorf 
had every inducement to lead a life of elegant leisure, 
but he laid fame, wealth, social position, everything upon 
the altar, saying, " I have but one passion, and it is He, 
only He." The call of the living Christ seemed ever 
in his heart as he journeyed to plant the gospel among 
distant nations. So it has been with all of Christ's valiant 
soldiers; a power they could not resist has drawn them 
on and on. This divine power has been most signally 
manifested in the opening up of the way for the preaching 
of the gospel and in the overcoming of obstacles. In our 
own day the whole world has been thrown open to Chris- 
tian civilization by circumstances almost miraculous. The 
capture of Manila by our navy and the thrusting forth of 
our nation into Asiatic life illustrate the strange events 
beyond human thought or control that have made all 
nations accessible to the gospel. 

Into the heart of humanity, even among the heathen, 
the divine Spirit has gone before the message of the 



THE PRECEDING GOD 11 

gospel has been preached. How otherwise can we explain 
the heavy consciousness of sin among non-Christians? 
How interpret the unhappiness of the race out of Christ ? 
Whence come the vague yearnings and perturbations of 
the human soul which exist among the heathen as well as 
among ourselves ? The very idol-worship and abominable 
heathen rites bear witness to man's essential religiosity. 
Humboldt describes his deep emotion at finding an ex- 
quisite flower on the edge of the crater of Vesuvius. 
There amidst the lava, a little rich soil had gathered and 
to it the wind had borne a seed and there amidst awful 
desolation had sprung up the sweet flower. Nansen 
declares that he found near the north pole, amidst the 
icebergs of the arctic sea, in an abyss of wintry darkness, 
the warm, life-giving movement and pulse of the Gulf 
Stream. 

To the heart of humanity the Divine Spirit has come. 
Many in our own country and in heathen lands have been 
prepared by heavenly influences for the preached word. 
A missionary writes that a woman in the wilds of Africa 
heard for the first time of Christ and his saving grace, 
and then exclaimed : " That must be the man who comes 
to me so often in my prayers. I could not tell before who 
he was." John Fiske, philosopher and historian, relates, 
in his " Idea of God/' of how an untutored Kaffir savage 
found in the gospel message the immediate and blessed 
answer and fulfilment of the vague questionings and 
yearnings that had long filled his soul. The waiting of 
the world for Christ, with its yearnings, sins, woes, is 
dramatically pictured in the poetical-prophetical passage 
in Romans, the eighth chapter, the nineteenth to twenty- 
first verses. We who have the knowledge of Christ and 
the first-fruits of the Spirit " groan within ourselves, 
waiting for the adoption — to wit, the redemption of our 



12 THE PRECEDING GOD 

body." But this is not all, says the inspired apostle; there 
is a broader synthesis of aspiration Godward ; there is a 
wider fellowship of spiritual yearning, a more passionate 
symphony of cryings and groanings. He depicts all cre- 
ation as a mighty creature, glorious in its possibilities, 
yet in sore need and bitter sin and suffering, groaning 
and crying and stretching out bruised and bleeding hands 
toward the skies. " For the earnest expectation of the 
creation waited for the revealing of the sons of God. For 
we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth 
in pain together with us until now." Oh, the weary, 
anguished waiting of the world, its heart touched by 
the Spirit, for the preaching of Christ! 

Before us has God gone, fashioning this wonderful 
material universe, making the human soul a reflex of 
himself, revealing his heart in Christ's gospel, inspiring 
the race through the Holy Spirit to continual progress, 
and in the proclamation of the gospel giving peculiar and 
irresistible tokens of his leadership. Beyond this brief 
present life and through all eternity we believe that 
the divine goodness will go, ever leading into higher 
and higher enjoyments and employments and spiritual 
treasures. 

Let us take to heart special applications of our theme to 
the majestic plans and efforts of our three great mission- 
ary societies, and for every realm of Christian effort. 
Here is the thought of unlimited power and resources 
pledged for us. This is God's world. He bears it on his 
heart. What Christ did and felt in his brief earthly 
ministry, that we may be sure Almighty God is feeling 
and doing through all the ages. John Foster, in one 
of his essays, says that in the miracles of the Bible " God 
rings the great bell of the universe to call the attention 
of all people." Let us expand the saying. In the mir- 



THE PRECEDING GOD 13 

aclcs of missions God has been ringing the great bell 
of the universe to waken us from self-centered, man- 
centered thoughts and to remind us of the supernatural, 
divine forces all about us. Ah, the infinite power of God 
in flower and mountain, and ocean and sky, in all the 
worlds that go circling through space, and in the secret, 
silent forces by man yet undiscovered, and all this power 
guided by love and pledged in behalf of the Christian 
worker ! This limitless power is with us when we follow 
the divine call. " Ye shall have power." That promise is 
closely linked to another " shall" — " Ye shall be witnesses 
unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in 
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." 

The going before of the ever-living Christ involves 
our subordination, our subjection. The divine pattern 
involves a command for human imitation, the divine 
example involves human exemplification. How blessed 
is such subordination ! We are simply to follow the 
divine leadings and leave results with God. There is 
divine responsibility upon which we may rest with serene 
faith, as Judson and Livingstone and Clough have done. 

How large and bold should be our activities in all 
Christian work under the inspiration of our theme! No 
plan for Christian expansion can be too ambitious, no 
faith too bold, no zeal too great, when we remember the 
needs of humanity and the leadership of Christ. Let us 
have the spirit of those missionaries who were planning 
to advance from New Guinea to Murray Island. An 
attempt was made to stop them by a native, who said, 
" There are alligators on Murray Island, and snakes, 
and centipedes." " Hold," said Tapeso, " are there men 
there ? " " Oh, yes ; there are men, of course ; but they 
are such dreadful savages that there is no use of your 
thinking of living among them." " That will do," replied 



14 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Tapeso ; u wherever there are men, missionaries are 
bound to go." Wherever a single soul is, there is need, 
there are eternal possibilities, and there is the Divine 
Spirit preparing the soul for the message. We cannot, 
must not, rest until every nation and every individual 
has had an opportunity to accept Christ. Alas for our 
languor, our spiritual lethargy! The Christian churches 
of today scarcely do one scintilla of what they might do 
for the evangelization of the world. The newspapers 
told us, last March, of how Niagara Falls became almost 
dry, the great torrent of water having nearly ceased for 
a few hours. What was the trouble? Power impeded by 
ice. Great masses of ice from Lake Erie pressed together 
near the head of Goat Island and diverted the water 
from the American to the Canadian side, and so for a 
season the stupendous waterfall vanished. Oh, the im- 
peded energy of the church, diverted, thwarted, some- 
times destroyed, by the ice-flows of selfishness, worldli- 

ness, and sin! 

f 

Do you remember that characteristic scene in Victor 
Hugo's masterpiece, in which that great soul, Jean Val- 
jean, gives to the uttermost his vast strength for the 
saving of life? An old man, Valjean's enemy, by a 
strange accident had fallen under a ponderous cart, which, 
heavily laden, rested on his breast and was crushing the 
life from him. The soil was soft with rain, the cart sank 
deeper and deeper, crushing out the old man's life. In 
five minutes more he would be dead. Who will crawl 
under the cart and risk his life to save the perishing one ? 
Appeal after appeal is made. The police inspector says 
only one man in France could do it, and he was a convict 
at the galleys in Toulon. Jean Valjean turns pale. Shall 
he risk his life and also reveal his unhappy past and 
destroy his present high position? Meanwhile the cart 



THE PRECEDING GOD 15 

sinks lower. Its victim is manifestly about to die. With- 
out a word, Jean Valjean falls on his knees ; flat on the 
ground he crawls under the terrible weight and makes 
two vain efforts for rescue. The crowd cries : " Come 
out, come out! You, too, will die." The suffering 
victim says : " Leave me ! You will get yourself crushed 
also/' All the spectators are panting with affright. The 
great cart sinks lower and lower, and both rescuer and 
victim are apparently about to die. Suddenly Jean Val- 
jean exercises to the utmost his prodigious, almost super- 
human, power. His muscles standing forth like ropes, all 
his strength in limbs and shoulders and back strains 
upward, upward. The great mass trembles, quivers, 
rises slowly upward. The dying man moves, is saved! 
This, O disciples of Christ, is our task, to put our utter- 
most strength beneath the awful weight of sin and 
heathenism, and to lift and lift until all oppressed and 
dying souls are freed from terrible bondage. 

The more active we are in missionary work, the deeper 
we go into it, the more glorious and rewardful it becomes 
to our souls. The splendor of the conception of proclaim- 
ing the redemptive love of Almighty God far surpasses 
in grandeur the warrior's plan, the statesman's endeavor 
for national conquest, the poet's dream of human brother- 
hood, the philosopher's theory of universal linguistic 
unity. The soul that truly takes Christ's sublime thought 
and command for the redemption of humanity is in turn 
taken control of by that command, every impulse and 
power sweetened, broadened, vivified, energized! 

And let us be filled with holy hope and exultant ex- 
pectation for humanity as we think of God's leadership, 
Christ's perpetual presence, the Holy Spirit's residence 
in and preparation of the race. In a time of terrible 
trial, personal and national, James Russell Lowell wrote : 



16 THE PRECEDING GOD 

" I take great comfort in God. I think he is considerably 
amused sometimes, but, on the whole, loves us, and would 
not let us get at the match-box if he did not know that 
the frame of the universe was fire-proof." Slow may 
seem the progress of the world's redemption, heavy the 
burdens on the hearts of faithful toilers, well-nigh insur- 
mountable the barriers of sin and selfishness, but full 
victory is near because of what God is. The glorious 
company of the saints is with us ; the irresistible gravita- 
tion of eternal truth is with us ; the best yearnings and 
aspirations of humanity are with us; the momentum of 
nineteen centuries of Christian work is with us ; the liv- 
ing, omnipotent Christ is before us. With exultant hearts 
we climb to some great height of revealed truth and 
look out with glad expectancy to the consummation of 
the ages when at the pierced feet of Christ every soul 
shall fall in loving trust and service. 

Stronger than steel 
Is the sword of the Spirit; 
Swifter than arrows 
The light of the truth is; 
Greater than anger 
Is love and subdueth. 
The dawn is not distant, 
Nor is the night starless ; 
Love is eternal ! 
God is still God, and 
His faith shall not fail us ; 
Christ is eternal. 

Sudden have been the comings of the Son of God in 
the history of the world, and this element of unexpected- 
ness is predicted in Scripture for the day of final triumph. 
The most experienced missionaries, the most devoted 
Christian workers the world over, seem to be standing, 



THE PRECEDING GOD 17 

as it were, today on tiptoe in solemn expectancy of some 
great and surprising turning of hearts to Christ. Sir 
Alexander Mackenzie, one of the great statesmen of 
India, said, a few years ago, to Dr. J. H. Barrows, that 
he thought there were blessed surprises for Christian 
workers in India ; " that he looked forward to the time 
when multitudes of the people of India should be pressing 
into the kingdom of heaven. ,, The distinguished presi- 
dent of Union Theological Seminary, who has recently 
been spending a year in India, has just stated that there 
is a deep longing among the people for spiritual religion, 
and that Christianity is growing with remarkable rapidity. 
From missionaries everywhere come tidings of a new and 
profound anticipation of some great religious transforma- 
tion near at hand. Who can tell how near the dawn of 
realization may be? 

Never can I forget a strange, soul-thrilling sunrise on 
the Gulf of Mexico, some years ago. Long had been 
the night to the sleepless travelers, as through blackness 
and storm the train rushed on. It seemed as if the morn- 
ing would never come. At last a single bird began to 
sing. The darkness here and there was penetrated with 
an arrow of light, the shadows began to tremble and 
fall away. At intervals the white gleam of the sea 
waves shone out. But still the day delayed its coming, 
and we said, Will the night ever end ? Suddenly, as by a 
miracle, the sun, like a great ball of fire, leaped above 
the horizon, earth was flooded with a glory as of heaven, 
the sea shimmered in a blaze of splendor, and a thousand 
birds sang as if their hearts were bursting with joy. 

Long, long seems the night, and weary is the watch- 
ing, but the arrows of divine light are piercing the dark- 
ness; here and there sentinels of the day are singing, 
radiant spots begin to appear, the shadows of sin and 



18 THE PRECEDING GOD 

ignorance are receding. Soon — in God's good time — as 
by special divine intervention, nations will be born into 
the kingdom of heaven as in a day. Happy, thrice happy, 
they who watch and work and plan and pray for the 
advent of the King of Glory ! 



II 

FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 

" They were all filled with the Holy Spirit/' — Acts 4 : 31. 

HOW brief and simple seems our text ! Yet it is full of 
sublime mystery and it is the golden key which un- 
locks the best joys and powers of this life and of heaven. 
Here we have the way to spiritual achievement for every 
Christian and every church. Here is the secret of peace 
and victory, the secret of Jesus and of God. The Book 
of Acts has well been called the Gospel of the Holy Spirit, 
for its pages deal with the onward movements of the 
Spirit's leadings. In the first chapter we have the ascen- 
sion of Christ into heaven, in the second the outpouring 
of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost and the birth 
of the Christian Church and the conversion of three 
thousand souls, in the third the first miracle of the 
apostles, in the fourth the imprisonment and release of 
the apostles, the prayers of the company of Christians, 
and then the words, " They were all filled with the Holy 
Spirit." Our text is like a life-giving fountain, back of 
it the Eternal Hills of God whence it came, in front of 
it the wilderness transformed into a garden of God as 
described in the book of Acts and wrought out in the 
ages of human history since. 

Let us consider each word of our text as we try to 
reach some of its gracious meanings. 

I. The Holy Spirit — it is good for us to study the 
general teachings of the Bible concerning the Holy Spirit. 

19 



20 THE PRECEDING GOD 

His preeminence, his personality, his presence now as the 
mighty power back of everything good and beautiful 
and divine in the world — these are some of the teachings 
that meet us. We are taught that the Divine Spirit is 
the possible guest for every humble, believing heart. 
But in these lofty realms of truth and faith mysteries 
multiply as we ascend from high to higher heights of 
life. There is the great mystery of the Holy Trinity; 
but there are other trinities in lower realms which are 
prophetic of this culmination of them all. Water mani- 
fests itself as a liquid, as a vapor, and as ice. Man is 
one personality but he is mind, spirit, and body. 

God, the mighty, wise, loving Creator and Sustainer 
of the universe, is presented in the Old Testament; God 
in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, is the theme 
of the Gospels and all the New Testament. God as the 
Infinite, omnipresent Spirit of love and light is the unique 
and glorious doctrine and reality of the Christian faith 
since the day of Pentecost. I love to think of the Holy 
Spirit as God close at hand, as the One through whom 
Jesus is ever present. Thus we have the conception of 
the divine immanence. We ought to think of the divine 
transcendence, that is, of the unspeakable, ineffable glory 
and wonder of the Infinite Maker and Ruler of the uni- 
verse, beyond all our wisest thoughts in his uplifted 
grandeur and holiness. But we rejoice in the doctrine 
of the Holy Spirit with its teaching of the nearness 
always, everywhere, of the Holy Father and the com- 
passionate Saviour. Some of the great leaders of modern 
thought — especially some of our chief poets — have em- 
phasized the divine immanence. 

We remember Tennyson's oft-quoted line, 

"Closer is He than breathing, nearer than hands and feet" 



FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 21 

Our hearts leap up in response to Whittier's words : 

So sometimes comes to soul and sense 

The feeling which is evidence 

That very near about us lies 

The realm of spiritual mysteries. 

The sphere of the supernal powers 

Impinges on this world of ours. 

The low and dark horizon lifts, 

To light the scenic terror shifts ; 

The breath of a diviner air 

Blows down the answer of a prayer : 

That all our sorrow, pain, and doubt 

A great compassion clasps about, 

^ ■% s|s ifc ♦ ■%. £ 

With smile of trust and folded hands, 
The passive soul in waiting stands 
To feel, as flowers the sun and dew, 
The One true Life its own renew. 

Wordsworth, it might almost be said, has one supreme 
theme, namely, the immediate proximity of God to all 
life here, the interfusing and interblending of the Divine 
Spirit with all responsive human spirits. He writes: 

I have felt 
A presence that disturbs me with the joy 
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime 
Of something far more deeply interfused, 
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, 
And the round ocean, and the living air, 
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man 
A motion and a spirit that impels 
All thinking things, all objects of all thought 
And rolls through all things. 

But centuries ago Martin Luther said, " If you knock 
at the door of my heart and ask, ' Who lives here ? ' a 
voice would reply, ' Not Martin Luther, but Jesus 



22 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Christ/ " Long before the great Reformer the inspired 
apostle exclaimed, " Christ liveth in me," and again, 
" Christ in you the hope of glory," and again, " that 
Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." 

These ecstatic thoughts of St. Paul concerning the 
spiritual fulness of life and the companionship of Jesus, 
these inspiring conceptions of great poets and thinkers 
concerning the nearness of God we may claim for our- 
selves because of the Divine Spirit's presence with and 
in our spirits. The Holy Spirit's supreme work is to 
bring God, to bring Jesus Christ into the center of our 
souls. That seems to be the teaching of Christ's great 
discourse in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth 
chapters of John's Gospel. All the results of the Holy 
Spirit's work — conviction of sin, vision of righteousness, 
growth in knowledge of truth, new peace and love and 
power — flow from the rich and full nearness and fel- 
lowship of God and of Jesus Christ through the Spirit. 
So then we love to think of the Holy Spirit as the God 
close at hand, as the medium through whom Jesus Christ 
comes with saving, comforting, illuminating grace into 
the very heart of our lives. As St. Paul joyfully said, 
" In him we live and move and have our being." Ask 
the flower how close is the warmth of the sunlight, or 
the bird how near is the air, or the child if the tender 
mother really loves. Ask the Christian if God is far 
away or near at hand. He replies, " He is here, he is in 
me and around me, the Life of my life, the Soul of my 
soul." 

Of course in a noble and real sense God has always 
been near to us from the very dawn of creation when 
the Divine Spirit brooded over " the face of the waters," 
but during the Old Testament times God seems to have 
been thought of chiefly as One far away in infinite space, 



FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 23 

"the high and lofty One who inhabiteth Eternity." In 
the New Testament dispensation we have the glory and 
wonder of God's identification of himself with us in the 
incarnation of his Son. When the Saviour returned to 
his heavenly majesty another and more glorious dispensa- 
tion began with the coming in fulness of the Holy Spirit 
to continue the saving ministry of Christ and to bring the 
riches of the life and love and power of God into human 
hearts. The Scriptures teach that while Christ continues 
his redeeming work for us in heaven by his ministry 
of intercession, the Holy Spirit pleads on earth for God 
with men, convicting us of sin, leading us into truth, 
presenting to our hearts the divine grace, strengthening 
us to take Christ as our Saviour, and then transforming 
us into the likeness of Christ. Dr. Augustus H. Strong 
has with impressive brevity brought out in one sentence 
majestic truths concerning the divine manifestations to 
humanity : " Christ is the organ of external revelation ; 
the Holy Spirit the organ of internal revelation." Ah, 
here is the secret! The inner life must be made over, 
" born again," " renewed," and this can be accomplished 
only through this " internal revelation " of the Spirit 
which Doctor Strong speaks of. Worldliness in a man 
does not mean certain words and deeds of evil, but an 
inward state of mind and heart which estimates every- 
thing from a selfish, material standpoint, which finds its 
joys and treasures and hopes in the fleeting diversions 
and excitements of earth. Spirituality, on the other hand, 
is an inward state where God and Christ and heavenly 
standards are supreme because the Holy Spirit has re- 
vealed them with transfiguring power to the soul. We 
know that by the coming of Jesus the world was made 
over into something nobler and more divine in its ideals, 
laws, customs, ways of thinking, and almost everything. 



24 THE PRECEDING GOD 

What wrought this moral and spiritual transformation? 
It was the Holy Spirit poured out into men's lives when 
Christ ascended to glory. The Spirit brought illimitable 
spiritual treasures of God into men's souls, thus achieving 
moral and spiritual wonders. 

The converting, transfiguring power manifested in the 
first and other early Christian centuries is still possible 
to us. God is still here. The Holy Spirit still yearns 
after the human race and every individual. "More fire, 
more fire ! " cried the great French artist and scientist, 
" and I will make china of such beauty as the world has 
never seen." More of the Divine Spirit, more of the 
God close at hand in the very core and center of our 
being, and a new day of love and righteousness and 
spiritual power and peace will dawn for us and the whole 
world. 

II. " All " is the second great expression of our text. 
This is in a peculiar and sublime sense a Christian word. 
Take the Bible and a concordance and study the Scrip- 
ture uses and applications of this little yet large, brief 
but broad, world-embracing, divine word. Meditate with 
especial care upon St. Paul's exultant uses of this word 
in its relationships to the heights and depths and breadths 
of God's grace and his gifts of spiritual treasures to 
human souls. God loves all. Christ died for all. A 
new life of nobility and service and peace and joy is 
possible for all. Now we are told that all were filled with 
the Holy Spirit. Here is a difference from the Old Testa- 
ment dispensation and a great advance. In the Old 
Testament only a very few seem to have been conscious 
of the Spirit's presence. In the former ages he seems to 
have been given in abundance only to great leaders or to 
officials — kings, judges, priests, prophets, and other out- 
standing personalities — but the people longed for the 



FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 25 

time when the prophecy would be fulfilled that " it shall 
come to pass in the last days, that I will pour out my 
Spirit on all flesh. ,, Even during our Lord's public, 
earthly ministry the Spirit does not seem to have been 
fully poured out upon all believers. But now with this 
significant word " all, a///' a new epoch begins. Young 
and old, rich and poor, high and low, learned and 
ignorant, sad and glad, male and female, bond and free — 
all believers are lifted to the high place held in the old 
days by a very few. This universal outpouring of the 
Spirit in the hearts of believers is emphasized throughout 
the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit being referred to more 
than seventy times. He is spoken of both as moving 
the multitude and, also, as controlling great leaders and 
obscure individuals. Thus the apostle Peter can speak 
of all believers in Christ as " a royal, a holy priesthood." 
Here in this gracious, epoch-making descent of the Holy 
Spirit upon all, into the heart of every humble, trusting 
follower of Jesus, we have the glory of Christianity. 
Here also is the glory of the individual, that, no matter 
how insignificant he may be, it is possible for him to 
become an abiding-place of the Divine Spirit. Because 
of this Mrs. Browning's words are true as applied to 
human lives : 

Nothing small; 

No lily-muffled hum of a summer bee 

But hath some coupling with the spinning stars ; 

No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere ; 

No chaffinch but implies the cherubim. 

In the " all " of our text we have the real warrant for 
true democracy. Here is the rational and Scriptural 
basis for prayer-meeting services in which all believers 
have the privilege to take part in prayer and testimony. 
Here is the secret of power for a church. Here is the 



26 THE PRECEDING GOD 

true basis for lay evangelism and for every saved soul to 
become a witnessing, soul-saving worker. Think of 
William Carey, the poor cobbler, in his little shoe shop at 
Kettering, England, so filled with the Spirit that he gives 
every spare moment to presenting Christ to individuals 
and to little groups wherever he finds them. The same 
Spirit led him to India and made him the founder in 
modern times of the foreign missionary enterprise. 
Think of that humble, godly, tender man known as 
11 Uncle John Vassar," the rule of whose life was never 
to meet anybody without in some tactful, gracious way 
presenting the claims of Jesus on the soul. Think of 
the multitudes of men and women and boys and girls of 
whom the world never knows who, inspired by the Spirit 
of God, work faithfully and bravely, suffer patiently, live 
purely and nobly, minister helpfully to everybody they 
meet, and cleave always to the vision of God and Christ 
and heaven. These Spirit-filled souls are the saving salt 
of society and make possible whatever is good and sweet 
and heroic in life. We do not know their names, but God 
knows them. 

The Spirit in all, all. That means each of us, every 
follower of Christ who will humbly, earnestly claim his 
rich heritage. 

III. The third word of our text, " filled/' is so great 
and striking that at first it discourages us. We feel that 
we are too weak and sinful, or, that the circumstances 
of our lives are too difficult and engrossing for this 
mighty word ever to be realized with us. But let us con- 
sider the meaning of the word. It does not necessarily 
involve great genius, or moral perfection, or emotional 
ardor, or the doing away with the distinctive characteris- 
tics of the individual. The filling of the soul by the 
Divine Spirit does not involve a great inrush of new 



FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 27 

intellectual life but the lighting up of all we have and 
are by new love for Jesus and for humanity and new 
devotion to unselfish service. 

Here are several cups and glasses and pitchers of vary- 
ing sizes. You fill each one of them to the brim with 
water. The smallest cup is as truly filled as is the largest 
pitcher. So in the lighting up and filling of the soul by 
the Spirit, God does not destroy our inherited and 
acquired intellectual characteristics. Each individual has 
powers possessed by none other. Lord Macaulay tells 
of how he stood at a busy corner of a London street and 
watched for an hour the men and women passing, and 
of his deep interest in the fact that, while there was a 
general likeness between them all, every face was different 
in some respects from every other face. The Almighty 
seems to have respect for the individual personality. The 
Spirit's presence does not blot out our distinctive talents. 
The filling of the Spirit does not imply the adding of new 
intellectual powers but the penetration and diffusion 
through those powers of a new spirit of tenderness, 
gentleness, purity, and love, the very mind of Jesus. I 
have seen small and large glass containers filled with 
water. They were filled so full that apparently no more 
water could be poured into them. Then a tiny drop — 
scarcely larger than a pin's head — of a powerful chemical, 
was put in each receptacle and in a moment all the vessels 
and all the contents of each were transformed into golden 
beauty. Somehow so is it when the Spirit of God takes 
possession of us. 

Take another illustration which was suggested to me 
by a friend from an incident some years ago in the life 
of Frank Beard, the famous lecturer and illustrator. 
Mr. Beard, while speaking, drew pictures on an old* 
fashioned blackboard with crayons to illustrate his 



28 THE PRECEDING GOD 

thoughts. On this occasion he endeavored to bring be- 
fore his audience vividly a bitterly cold winter evening. 
With a few rapid strokes he drew a picture on the black- 
board of a country house, surrounded by snow and ice. 
There was snow on the ground, snow on the roof, snow 
covering the walks, icicles hanging from the shutters. It 
was such a perfect illustration of mid-winter that the 
audience almost shivered. Then the lecturer with a yel- 
low crayon and a few bold strokes depicted a warm light 
shining from two windows of the house. The whole 
scene and its suggestions were thus immediately changed ! 
Now the dominating thoughts were those of warmth, a 
fire on the hearth, comfort, home, cheer. Somehow so, 
the filling of the Spirit means that the general tendency, 
suggestion, control of our lives is transfigured from cold- 
ness to warmth, from selfishness to love, from sinfulness 
to goodness, from worldliness to heavenliness, from the 
spirit of the times to the mind of Christ. Not entirely 
perfect, sometimes blundering and falling, but the trend 
of life, on the whole, becomes ever upward, onward, 
Christward. 

How may we be filled with the Holy Spirit? The 
circumstances connected with our text are very sug- 
gestive. Just before this blessing came the people in their 
affliction and in the imprisonment of the apostles had a 
deep longing for God and for the eternal, heavenly trea- 
sures, there was strong, united prayer, there seems to 
have been definite effort to remove obstacles to conse- 
crated living. Spiritual aspiration, definite united prayer, 
removal of obstacles — here are three steps toward the 
filling of the Spirit. Every day, a season, even though 
brief, for seclusion and silence and supplication. Every 
day, association with kindred souls longing for the deep 
things of life. Every day, conscious effort to remove 



FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT 29 

some obstacle and greater effort to conquer some weak- 
ness or folly. 

At anchor laid, remote from home, 
Toiling, I cry, sweet Spirit, come! 
Celestial breeze, no longer stay 
But swell my sails, and speed my way. 

Fain would I mount, fain would I glow, 

And loose my cable from below; 

But I can only spread my sail, 

Thou, thou must breathe the auspicious gale. 

Many years ago in a church where I preached I was 
told of how a noble pipe-organ for a long time responded 
poorly or not at all to the skill of the organist. Repeated 
efforts to find the cause of the trouble were made, but all 
were in vain. At last, the builders of the organ made 
careful investigation and found that a little mouse, dead 
for a long time, had been caught in a vital, delicate place 
in the machinery, and had caused all the trouble. A 
little, dried-up mouse defeating all the power of a great 
pipe-organ and making all the music mute! OK, we 
must humbly and contritely seek with God's help to 
remove the besetting sins and cherished weaknesses of 
our lives before we can have the filling of the Spirit's 
power and peace. 

The blessed results of the Holy Spirit's filling of the 
soul are brought out immediately after our text and 
throughout the book of Acts and throughout all the ages 
since. What were some of them ? Joy and peace, fellow- 
ship and love, courage and hope, power in witnessing for 
Jesus, human souls lifted up above the trials and incidents 
of life, the divine guidance and initiative for great and 
holy achievements. Filled with the Spirit these humble, 
heroic followers of Jesus go on from victory to victory, 



30 THE PRECEDING GOD 

from glory to glory. The book of Acts begins at Jeru- 
salem and ends in Rome, the center of the human race, 
begins with a little handful of disciples and ends with 
believers over a great part of the known world. These 
results have been multiplying and spreading and intensi- 
fying through the ages. 

Just now the world seems on the threshold of some 
wonderful change which may usher in a new and great 
day for Jesus Christ and his Spirit. Man's extremity 
has often been God's opportunity. Quickly can the Spirit 
of God change all the sad and sinful and tragic conditions 
of the present into holiness and joy and love and life for 
the world and for each of us. Many times in our summer 
days on the New England coast we have watched the 
coming of the tide into the old inner harbor of Gloucester, 
Massachusetts. There it lay, the ancient inner harbor, its 
dirt and foulness exposed by the ebbing of the waters at 
low tide. Many little boats are held fast in the mud, 
disagreeable sights and smells are on every side. An 
atmosphere of depression broods over everything. But 
after a while a gentle breeze from the ocean begins to 
blow, sweet odors and the breath of the salt sea delight our 
senses, the water begins to rise with rippling murmurs, 
there is new life in the very air. Now the full tide from 
out the boundless deep comes pouring in. All the ugli- 
ness of the exposed places is covered up with beauty, the 
boats that were held prisoners in the mud are set free 
and made ready for service. A sense of freedom and life 
and exhilaration thrills in the air. A new chapter for 
noble adventure and achievement seems at hand. So 
shall it be for us and for all the disciples of Christ when 
the Divine Spirit fills our souls. Then shall a radiant 
and holy day dawn, then shall the world be made new. 



Ill 

ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH *■ 

According to your faith be it unto you." — Matthew 9 : 29. 

THIS rich chapter of the Gospel contains a picture, or 
rather a series of pictures, of the world of sin and 
sorrow through which Christ passed, of the world as it has 
been through the ages. We have portrayed a man sick 
with the palsy, a politician with a bad reputation, a group 
of publicans and sinners, a company of critical, proud 
Pharisees, a ruler mourning because his little daughter is 
dying, a woman sick for twelve years, a home where 
death is, and then, two blind men. What scenes of 
tragedy are here ! 

On that dark background we have presented the fact 
that faith is one of the supreme gifts of Christ to the 
world. None of these tragedies was too great for Christ 
to meet it and solve it. He has words of cheer and mir- 
acles of healing for them all, but faith seems to be the 
condition always for the transformation, and to the blind 
men he says explicity, M According to your faith be it 
unto you." Thus we are reminded that faith in the 
noblest sense had its birth with the coming of Christ and 
his redemptive work. In the ancient world there was 
everywhere doubt and fear. There was distrust of 
nature, fear of rivers, mountains, valleys, the forest, the 
ocean. Men had distrust of themselves and of other men. 

1 Notes of sermon preached on the first Sunday of the Author's Ministry 
at the Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, Brooklyn, N. Y, 

31 



32 THE PRECEDING GOD 

The root of it all was doubt of God or terror at the 
thought of him. Now comes Jesus the Saviour with his 
revelation of God as infinitely loving and tender and re- 
demptive, yearning after all sad and sinful men and 
women, and thus Jesus changes fear to faith, terror to 
trust. The world had thought of God as cold or cruel 
Fate, Christ taught that he was a gracious Father — 
" Our Father who art in heaven/' " Your Father careth 
for you." 

Out of this new faith in God came new trust in the 
friendliness of nature, in one's own possibilities, in the 
brotherhood of humanity, in the final outcome of life. 
None too sick or too sad or too bad for Jesus ! Mark his 
gracious words to the tragic cases just before our text. 
To the tax-collector, " Follow me " ; to the outcasts, " I 
will have mercy " ; to the woman sick twelve years and 
only able to touch the hem of his garment, " Be of good 
comfort, thy faith hath saved thee " ; to those weeping 
for the dead, " She is not dead but sleepeth " ; to the 
blind men, " According to your faith be it unto you." 
Christ has been saying these words and working these 
miracles of grace by his loving Spirit throughout the cen- 
turies. Oh, the inexhaustible, infinite richness of this gift 
of faith to the world, flowing from Christ's revelation of 
God's redemptive love! God has faith in us, we may 
humbly say, and, therefore, we may have faith in our own 
possibilities and in all men and in the destiny of the 
world. 

" According to your faith be it unto you " — here is a 
motto, a rule of life, which is one of the chief secrets 
of power, not simply for every church and minister, but 
also for every business and every institution of learning 
and every home and every individual. In all the relation- 
ships and all the struggles of life the measure, or amount, 




ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH 33 



of our faith is the measure of our success. This is 
especially true in the realm of spiritual achievement, of 
religious peace and power. A familiar and helpful way 
to think of faith is to consider it as the action or attitude 
of the soul by which we appropriate the power of another. 
As through the little canal the life-giving waters of the 
river change the desert into a garden, so through faith 
comes pouring into the soul life and redemption from a 
greater, grander source than our own strength. This is 
true everywhere and reminds us of the deep, essential 
reasonableness of the Christian faith, when we ponder 
long and humbly over the facts of humanity's great need 
and of God's gracious supply for that need. Speaking 
of the importance of prolonged meditation and study con- 
cerning the call of Christ to the soul, Hare well writes 
in his " Guesses at Truth " : " Man's first word is, Yes; 
his second, No; his third and last, Yes, Most stop short 
at the first ; very few get to the last." In striking illustra- 
tion of these words of Hare is the fact that the famous 
English scientist, Michael Faraday, told the church of 
which he was a member that his studies had so weakened 
his faith that he desired to have his name removed from 
its roll. At his insistence this was done. Several years 
later, we are told, he came before the church and re- 
quested that he be restored to its membership, stating that 
" while a little study had led him astray, more study had 
led him back." He had learned that faith was necessary 
in every realm of life for man's nourishment and noblest 
development. When we walk, we do so by instinctive, 
unconscious faith in the ground beneath our feet. When 
we travel, by faith in the engineer, all his skill and 
experience become ours. When we eat, we do so by trust 
in the one who has prepared the food, and then the nour- 
ishing elements support our physical life. When we read. 



34 THE PRECEDING GOD 

we believe the immortal thinkers of the past and their 
thoughts inspire and broaden our characters. There 
must be faith in every step of one's education from the 
mastery of the multiplication-table to the loftiest heights 
of scientific explanation and experiment. Well did the 
late President Gilman of Johns Hopkins University say 
in one of his last baccalaureate addresses, " Back of all 
our studies and investigations and forward movements in 
search of knowledge and truth and higher living is one 
word, Credo!* It is absolutely true everywhere: Little 
faith, little life and achievement; large faith, large life 
and achievement. Faith writes poems, paints pictures, 
builds homes, rears colleges and hospitals, crosses oceans, 
founds new commonwealths of liberty and blessing, binds 
men together in a great brotherhood of love, leads all 
the great forward movements of humanity, bows in 
humble surrender to Jesus Christ, looks up in adoration 
and hope to the all-wise, all-loving God. 

Our text is especially true in the religious life and in 
meeting the great problems and perplexities of the present 
time. It is a trite thing to say that there never were such 
problems and difficulties for religious life and work as 
today. That may or may not be true. But it is true that 
the obstacles are very great. Our knowledge of the physi- 
cal universe has been so greatly enlarged as necessarily to 
change much of our thinking concerning the meaning 
of life and of our planet. The great World War has pre- 
cipitated a multitude of problems and difficulties. What 
shall we do? What is our chief need? The answer is, 
more faith, more confidence in the living God revealed 
in Jesus Christ and in all the spiritual powers and truths 
of Christ's great gospel. Some years ago one of my 
friends was troubled because the light supplied by the 
gas-jets in the different rooms of her beautiful home 



ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH 35 

became insufficient and dim. The cause of the diminution 
of brightness could not be found until an expert was sent 
for, who said the explanation was simple. He said that 
various rooms had been added to the house until the 
demand on the supply-pipe was too great for its capacity. 
" Put in a new and larger supply-pipe from the house to 
the gas-main in the street," said he, " and then your 
trouble will be removed." So with us in these days, the 
one solution for all our problems is found in an enlarged 
faith, linking us to the great spiritual reservoir of divine 
power and redemption. As the heavenly resources pour 
through it into our lives we shall be sufficient for great 
tasks and great triumphs. 

" According to your faith be it unto you." This is true 
as to the possibilities of goodness for one's own character 
and life. Let one have faith in the highest, noblest vir- 
tues, that they do exist in human characters and that 
through the Divine Spirit they are close at hand, eager to 
enter every earnest, receptive life. Christ's entrance into 
human conditions and all his incarnation help us to a new 
faith in the closeness of God to man and the nobility 
of all human relationships. Let one have faith in himself 
as planned by God to be a dwelling-place of all beautiful 
and heroic and Christly qualities, a very temple of the 
Holy Spirit. What then ? Then will come to one an over- 
whelming sense of neglected opportunities, of having 
turned away from the holiest ideals and possibilities and 
his highest nature. There will come profound sorrow for 
all this, deep penitence for sin, strong yearning for the 
true and good, and thus, the beginning of a new life! 
This is the way of salvation, — repent, believe, confess, 
arise to newness of life through the power of the living, 
forgiving Christ. 

But we must have some knowledge of Christ before 



36 THE PRECEDING GOD 

we can have this knowledge of the hidden possibilities 
of our own lives. Thus we are reminded of how true our 
text is in our relationship to Christ as our Saviour and 
present Helper. When on earth, Jesus was ever seeking 
faith and encouraging it and making it a test. With 
love and longing, with pathos and pleading, He, the very 
Son of God, sought for faith in the hearts of sinful men 
and women. He taught that it was the first requisite for 
pardon and peace and spiritual power. Faith and faith 
and still again faith — this was the demand of Jesus. 
" God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever helieveth on him should not perish, 
but have everlasting life" — this was one of the first mes- 
sages of our Lord, and one of his very last was, " He that 
helieveth and is baptized shall be saved," Make a study in 
the Gospels of Christ's appeals for faith from this early 
message to this closing one. All this loving anxiety for 
faith was not something arbitrary, but was based on the 
deepest foundations of life. We ourselves cannot help 
others unless they believe in us. Without trust, or con- 
fidence, there is an insurmountable barrier between us 
and them. It is so in our relationship to Christ. Just 
in proportion to our trust in him as the Son of God and 
the all-sufficient Saviour shall we have peace and joy 
and power and all the blessed fruits of the Spirit. The 
supreme message of the gospel is that God's love has 
placed Christ and his atoning work between us and all our 
sins and follies and shameful defeats. Where we trust 
him, all is forgiven, his divine life pours into our souls, 
and we start into a new and blessed future. That great 
and learned Scotch preacher, Thomas Chalmers, wrote 
in the latter part of his life : " I must say that I never had 
so close and satisfactory a view of the gospel salvation 
as when I have been led to contemplate it in the light 



ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH 37 

of a simple offer on the one side and a simple acceptance 
on the other. " 

Our text is true, also, in our relationship to God 
as the great Divine Spirit present in the world and willing 
to enter and bless every human spirit. The doctrine of 
the Holy Spirit is one of the unique glories of the Chris- 
tian religion, differentiating it from all other religions and 
systems of thought. It is a great mystery but at the heart 
of it is the inspiring truth that God and the living Jesus are 
through the Holy Spirit close at hand, ready to bless each 
one of us. But we must have faith in this glorious reality 
and ever-present nearness of the Holy Spirit ere we can 
receive his power, and the measure of our faith will be 
the measure of our spiritual infilling. Take men's concep- 
tion of electricity. For many decades, even before the 
time of Benjamin Franklin, it was thought that there was 
a mighty, mysterious electric power, or fluid, round about 
us in the air and earth ; but only in our own generation 
did men have confidence in it sufficientlv to seize hold of 
it and utilize its wonderful strength. Yet it was always 
in the world waiting for faith. Somehow so is it with 
the Holy Spirit's nearness and willingness. Several years 
ago at a social gathering some one asked the great practi- 
cal scientist, Thomas A. Edison, " Mr. Edison, are we 
near to the end of our utilization of the powers of elec- 
tricity ?'' Mr. Edison answered, "No sir, there is no 
end to the uses of the electric current." Then, after a 
moment's pause, he added, " There is no end to anything." 
Whether this be true or not, we know there is no end to 
the Holy Spirit's help and transfiguring power. Here he 
is close at hand waiting for our faith, yearning after us, 
eager to bless us beyond all our thought. The men of 
great epoch-makng influence have been men of great faith 
in a God ever-present through the Spirit — missionaries 



38 THE PRECEDING GOD 

like Judson of Burma, and Mackay of Uganda, states- 
men like Cromwell, who felt sure that he was an instru- 
ment of the Almighty, and Lincoln, who all his life had a 
deep conviction that God was leading him on and on. 

So, likewise, in our efforts to help and bless and redeem 
humanity, we must have faith in the rich possibilities of 
^ the human soul, the faith in something good and great in 
every individual, no matter how poor or sinful. Here is 
often the secret of the power of a good woman. It is said 
that Rudyard Kipling in a moment of deep depression 
threw away his immortal " Recessional Hymn " after he 
had just completed it, but his wife, with her great con- 
fidence in his genius and in whatever he wrote, rescued it 
from destruction. The undying faith of the mother has 
been the mainspring of the achievements of many men 
and women. " She believed in me, she still believes in 
me " — this dear memory goes with them through the bat- 
tles of life. There were many heart-moving circum- 
stances connected with the funeral, in London, of General 
William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, but 
the most thrilling of all was the presence of the multi- 
tude of those who had been considered the outcasts of the 
great city. He, the modern apostle of the most sinful 
and desperate classes, believed that in the most wicked 
men and women were endless possibilities of goodness by 
Christ's redeeming grace. This was the chief secret of his 
wonderful life. The cynical, sarcastic, pessimistic attitude 
never reaches the human heart, never can lead forward 
great and helpful movements. But faith can and does. 
Faith brings pity, sympathy, love, and hope for every- 
body. Faith sees flowers in snow-banks, jewels in ash- 
heaps, fertile fields in the desert, glorious possibilities in 
the humblest and most defeated men and women. That 
was the attitude of the Saviour toward humanity and 



ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH 39 

every individual. He saw in the prodigal son and in the 
dying thief and in the outcasts from society and in all 
the sinning, suffering sons and daughters of humanity 
immeasurable possibilities of good. So he came to earth, 
loved us, gave his great gospel, died for us, rose tri- 
umphant over death, and keeps on now and through the 
centuries redeeming humanity. 

Our text is true as to our expectation of the final 
triumph of good over evil in human history. If we are 
to work with joyful expectancy the fire of faith must 
be back of the bright light of hope. We are living in 
days of wide-spread religious depression now. There are 
many words of fear and foreboding. But the immediate 
present does not prophesy the far future. Robert Brown- 
ing gazing at the bodies of the suicides in the morgue at 
Paris could yet hope that a sun would " pierce the thick- 
est cloud earth ever stretched," because he had great faith 
in God and in man. The Bible with its majestic teach- 
ings of God's love and Providence, of Christ's redemptive 
power, of the Holy Spirit's continued presence and gui- 
dance, is the great book of hope. The last chapters of 
this book give the brightest pictures ever painted of a 
redeemed humanity, of truth and goodness triumphant, 
of sin and suffering banished forever, of joy beyond all 
joy, of eternal blessedness for all who have been re- 
deemed. Then when doubt and fear ask in perplexity, 
" What shall the harvest be? " let faith answer, " If God 
be for us, who can be against us ? " This faith in the 
final triumph of goodness and of Christ's love will bring 
joy to our hearts, gracious influence to all our words and 
deeds, and spiritual charm and beauty to our faces, and 
a spirit which none can resist. Thus the holy, hopeful, 
tranquil atmosphere of our lives may carry the gospel to 
some who otherwise would not receive a message of 



40 THE PRECEDING GOD 

God's grace. The great scholar and philosopher, Baron 
Bunsen, when dying, said to his wife, " My dear, in thy 
face I have seen the eternal." The world is waiting for 
characters so full of faith and all the heavenly graces 
that in them it may catch visions of the eternal Life 
and Love. 



IV 

" WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF 
HEAVEN ? " 

" The hope which is laid up for you in heaven." — Colossians 

1 : 5. 

MEN may be estimated by their hopes. What one is 
today is largely the fruit of his hopes in bygone 
days. What we shall be in the future will be determined 
by the hopes we are cherishing now. All of our best 
hopes are forerunners and prophets of the supreme hope 
of an Immortal, heavenly life. As the brooks and rivers 
hasten to the ocean and the hills and loftier elevations 
journey upward^ toward the Adirondacks or the Rocky 
Mountains, so the loftiest hopes we cherish point on- 
ward to the supreme hope, that of heaven, mentioned in 
our text. Man has never been able to escape this hope 
and in his best moments it shines most brightly. More 
than ten thousand books have been written concerning the 
state of the soul after death. The great World War, 
with its millions of dead and w r ith its innumerable deso- 
lations of every kind, has aroused keener and wider dis- 
cussion than ever before concerning the survival of the 
human personality after the death of the body and con- 
cerning the nature of the life beyond the grave. What 
shall we think of heaven ? This is one of the most inter- 
esting and important of themes. 

But before considering this question, let us think for a 
few moments of the other closely related question, Why 

41 



42 THE PRECEDING GOD 

do we believe in another life after this one we are now 
living? Glance at some of the reasons for our assurance, 
our sense of moral certainty. There is within us what 
might be called the instinct of immortality, — 

A solemn murmur in the soul 

Tells of the world to be, 
As travelers hear the billows roll 

Before they reach the sea. 

Our sense of justice and our reason cry out for 
another life. Science, with its teachings concerning the 
conservation of energy and concerning evolution, 
strengthens the faith of some. The fact that the best 
and saintliest and most helpful lives have been those of 
men and women who have believed most firmly in im- 
mortality is a weighty argument. The inextinguishable- 
ness of love by death is an eloquent appeal to the heart. 
We may not accept the views recently propounded by 
Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Conan Doyle concerning the 
world of spirits, but we cannot treat lightly the fact 
that these world-famous thinkers have in recent years 
been converted from a materialistic conception of life to 
a view which asserts that the soul passes through death 
triumphantly and begins quickly a new life on the other 
side. 

There is the grandeur of the human personality com- 
pelling us to believe in another life for the exercise 
and development of its manifested and its latent, or sub- 
conscious, faculties and powers. The mighty steamer 
which we see in New York harbor is too big and swift 
for the harbor, — it is made for the vast ocean. The 
human personality with all its treasures of mind and 
will and emotion and holiness and service and tender- 
ness and longing after God, is the crown and consunuma- 



WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF HEAVEN? 43 

tion of the universe, and is too great to be snuffed out 
after a few short years. The Bible and Jesus Christ, our 
Lord and Saviour, give the supreme and most glorious 
assurances concerning the life to come. David was sure 
that he would " walk through the valley of the shadow 
of death " onward and upward to the Celestial Mountains 
of eternal life. The background of all the New Testa- 
ment is the eternal world. Spiritual messages from that 
world are continually pouring into the life of Christ and 
the very air is pulsing with heavenly energies. Jesus 
Christ himself in his life and character and gospel and 
resurrection from the grave is the supreme proof of 
another life. " Now is Christ risen from the dead and 
become the firstfruits of them that slept." Christ was so 
completely divine, so transcendent in power over sin and 
disease and all evil of body and soul, so unique and 
glorious in his character and his gospel and in every- 
thing, that it was impossible for death to hold him. He 
broke through death and rose triumphant. Believing in 
him as our Saviour and Lord and perfect Teacher, our 
souls rejoice in his sublime declaration: " I am the resur- 
rection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he 
were dead, yet shall he live : and whosoever liveth and be- 
lieveth in me shall never die." But the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ is far more than a proof of human immor- 
tality — it is a prophecy of the participation of the be- 
liever in the blessed life of Jesus beyond the grave. It 
points not simply to another life but to another life of 
goodness and joy and glory in fellowship with Jesus. As 
our Lord said, " Today thou shalt be with me in Para- 
dise." Likewise he prayed, " Father, I will that they 
also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am, 
that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given 
me." 



44 THE PRECEDING GOD 

So we joyfully accept the lines of an American poet 
concerning death as a gentle angel to lead us out to larger 
life: 

What if some morning when the stars were paling, 
And the dawn whitened and the East was clear, 

Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence 
Of a benignant Spirit standing near; 

And I should tell him as he stood beside me, 

" This is our earth — most friendly earth and fair ; 

Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow 
Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air: 

There is blest living here, loving and serving, 
And quest of truth and serene friendships dear : 

But stay not, Spirit! Earth has one destroyer — 
His name is Death : flee, lest he find thee here ! " 

And what if then, while still the morning brightened, 
And freshened in the elm the summer's breath, 

Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel, 
And take my hand, and say, " My name is Death." 

But now we come to the great question over which 
earnest souls so often ponder, What shall we think of 
heaven ? On such a lofty and mysterious theme one must 
speak with utmost humility and reverence and guided by 
Scripture teachings and the conclusions of the wisest 
and best who have ever lived. We believe that heaven 
is both a place and a character, a prepared, spiritual 
environment for prepared, redeemed, spiritual people. 
It does not seem in accord with Scripture teach- 
ings or with reason to think that all believers — 
young and old, ripe saints and immature beginners are 
immediately at death led into the same glory and ecstasy. 
Doubtless there are degrees of knowledge and joy 
in the other life, although of course for the Christian 
death is at once a gain and an entrance into Paradise 



WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF HEAVEN? 45 

and into a better knowledge of Christ. Then comes, we 
believe, ever-increasing knowledge and growth as the 
soul progresses in its communion with God and its vision 
of his holiness and love. 

The Bible seems to teach that all the best and most 
beautiful elements of this life we shall have in the 
heavenly life, only they will be spiritualized, transfigured, 
and glorified. In the marvelous description of the heav- 
enly city in the twenty-first chapter of the book of 
Revelation, we read that " the kings of the earth do 
bring their glory and honor into it ! ,5 More than that, 
we read a little further that not only the kings — we are 
not caring so much for earthly kings and potentates in 
these days ! — but that " they," the people generally, poor 
and lowly as well as rich and mighty, " shall bring the 
glory and honor of the nations into it." Thus the hard- 
won treasures and triumphs of this life we shall have over 
there. The wonderful symbols and pictures in the book 
of Revelation are depicted in the colors and forms of this 
life to make heaven seem real to us and, also, we can 
but believe, because over there we shall have all the 
beautiful things of this life raised to loftier beauty and 
spiritualized. Some of the wisest and most Christian 
thinkers have long taught that the heavenly, the spirit 
world is a replica of this present world, although, of 
course, infinitely grander and holier. The greatest and 
most spiritual thinkers through the ages have taught 
that the real world is the invisible, heavenly one of which 
our world is a little, shadowy, broken miniature. The 
best things here are faint reflections and prophecies of the 
glory yonder. This Jesus seems to teach when he speaks 
to his disciples of heaven as a perfect home with many 
mansions. We may be sure that the heaven-life is im- 
measurably more glorious than this life. St. Paul taught 



46 THE PRECEDING GOD 

that it is " far better." He speaks of a wonderful ex- 
perience in his life when he was caught into the " third 
" heaven " or " paradise " and heard unspeakable words. 
He seems to teach that Christians when they die enter into 
Paradise, where Christ is in the third heaven. If the trea- 
sures of this life— "the glory and honor of the nations " — 
are to be brought over into the other life, surely then our 
mental and spiritual characteristics, our noblest personal 
faculties and idiosyncrasies we shall still have in heaven. 
In the biography of a famous Englishman we find a 
letter to another literary worker in which he writes, " I 
believe that heaven will be heaven for all our faculties 
and powers." In other words, it was this great thinker's 
conviction that our personalities would be carried over 
beyond the grave and the faculties and powers of our 
personalities would be raised to a heavenly height. How 
reasonable and comforting and inspiring such a faith ! 

There are four great general conceptions of heaven 
given in the Bible. 

Heaven is spoken of as a glorified city. Abraham 
the " Father of the Faithful," in some respects the great- 
est figure of remote antiquity, " looked for a city which 
hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God." 
John the beloved Apostle, a lonely exile on the isle of 
Patmos, was given for his comfort the visions which we 
have in the book of Revelation, and heaven was to him 
a wonderful, holy, happy city with streets of gold and 
walls of jasper and gates of pearls, and there was no 
sorrow and no sin in the city! To Abraham in his 
sad, wandering life, not permitted to have a permanent 
home, to John a prisoner on a lonely island, we can 
readily understand how beautiful and comforting must 
have been the thoughts linked with a settled home in the 
midst of congenial friends in a beautiful and holy city. 



WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF HEAVEN? 47 

There are many consoling and inspiring thoughts of 
heaven suggested to us by this symbol of a holy, happy, 
glorious, healthy, radiant city with a population innum- 
erable; but the one I would especially emphasize is that 
of new and enlarged opportunity. We urge the young 
people of our land to stay in the country sections, but they 
come in great numbers constantly to the cities largely 
because of the great opportunities there. The cities and 
towns with their easy access to humanity, their great 
business undertakings, their deep, intense life, their schools 
and colleges, their concerts and lecture-courses, stand 
for new and rich and broad opportunities for employ- 
ment, for enjoyment, and for education. I love to think 
of heaven as affording the pilgrims from earth a fresh 
opportunity. After a season of rest, think of the wonder 
of a fresh start by God's grace and the power of Christ in 
the heavenly city! We who have sinned and blundered 
and failed to carry out our noblest plans on earth may 
yonder by God's infinite mercy have new doors opened 
to us for illimitable growth in knowledge and goodness 
and holy joy and unceasing usefulness. The immensity 
and innumerableness of the population is emphasized. 
" The love of God is broader than the measure of man's 
mind." Glowing description is given of the music of 
heaven. Some have thoughtlessly jested concerning the 
harpers harping and the singers pouring forth their 
praise, failing to remfember that music is one of the 
noblest utterances of the soul, symbolizing spiritual peace, 
triumph, and ecstasy. In our highest moments our souls 
and lips burst forth, both consciously and unconsciously, 
into music. We read that when Blake the famous En- 
glish painter was dying, he was in a kind of spiritual 
ecstasy and said he was going to that country he had all 
his life wished to see, and said that he had a happy hope 



48 THE PRECEDING GOD 

of salvation through Jesus Christ. " Just before he died 
his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened, and he 
burst out into singing of the things he saw in heaven/' 
If here on earth the visions of joy we occasionally have 
bring songs to our lips, with what greater rapture shall 
we sing amidst the glories of heaven! Radiant gems 
and precious metals and nature's most wonderful gifts 
are used to symbolize the variety and richness and glory 
of the heavenly city. Remember that the symbol can at 
best only faintly prophesy and approximate the glorious 
reality. The reality is like the symbol, only greater. And 
no suffering bodies, no sorrowing, defeated souls, no sin 
in that city of God ! 

Another symbol of heaven which the Scriptures give 
and which is very dear to our hearts, is that of a great 
home. Christ himself gives this thought when he says: 

In my Father's house are many mansions ; if it were 
not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place 
for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I 
will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where 
I am ye may be also." St. Paul suggests the same thought 
in his letter to the Ephesians when speaking of prayer 
to the heavenly Father he says, " of whom the whole 
(or every) family in heaven and earth is named." Some 
are on earth and some in heaven ; but it is one family in 
Christ. The Father's house, or home, shall be our house, 
or home, and in it Christ is preparing an environment, or 
place, appropriate to our characters. The two sweetest 
thoughts of a happy home here are rest and love. The 
weary laborer, the business man, the child think of home 
with joy and longing because it means peace, repose, 
freedom from harassing cares. So shall it be over there, 
only unspeakably more perfect. " There remaineth there- 
fore a rest for the people of God." 



WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF HEAVEN? 49 

Love, delightful fellowship with congenial friends and 
kinsfolks, is the very heart of our best home-life here. 
Wealth, culture, artistic taste can help but cannot make 
a home. Love only can make a real home. Love can 
transfigure a house into a home. Love can make one 
bare room a home, if only dear ones are there. Over 
there we shall have a perfect reunion of all the 
broken ties of life here. How strange that any 
should have doubted that we shall know each other 
in the higher life. Heaven cannot be inferior to this 
earth, and we know each other here. The incident is 
related of the great Scotch preacher, Doctor Guthrie, 
that a woman expressed her doubts as to whether she 
would recognize her husband in the other world, and 
he immediately replied, " Do you really think we will be 
greater fools in heaven than we are here? " How can we 
fail to know our loved ones if personality and character 
and works go with us? The Bible not only takes this 
for granted but teaches it in every passage where the 
perpetuity and nobility of human character and the joy 
and glory of heaven are emphasized. In the early dawn 
of Scripture revelation we are told that the patriarchs 
at death were " gathered unto their fathers." Christ 
declared that many would come from the east and the 
west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the 
great gathering of redeemed souls in the kingdom of 
God. On the transfiguration mount not simply Jesus 
knew Moses and Elijah who had been dead so many 
hundreds of years, but Peter recognized them also. 
Doubtless the redeemed in heaven take a keen interest 
in their loved ones on earth, praying for them, watching 
over them, and probably being the agents of God to 
minister to their spiritual life. Christ himself said, " Joy 
shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth. ,, We 



50 THE PRECEDING GOD 

believe that they wait and watch for our departure from 
earth and welcome us on our entrance into the higher 
spirit-life of heaven. Surely we shall know each other 
in heaven even better than we do here. The clouds and 
mists of sin and sorrow and doubt and weakness will have 
passed away. Friendship and love will be more satisfy- 
ing and comforting and complete. Doubtless one of the 
joys of heaven will be the ever-widening circle of our 
fellowships and friendships. A beautiful and suggestive 
remark was made by a little girl five years old who had 
loved Bishop Phillips Brooks. When her mother told 
her that Bishop Brooks had passed away, that he had 
gone to heaven, she remarked, " Oh, Mother, how happy 
the angels will be ! " 

Another great conception of heaven which the Bible 
gives us is that of a state of delightful activity and 
service. The message in Revelation 14 : 13 is very ex- 
plicit and full of consolation : " I heard a voice from 
heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead who 
die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, 
that they may rest from their labours [that is, literally, 
grievous toils or troubles] ; and their works [that is, their 
activities] do follow with them." Again we read that 
in heaven " his servants shall serve him." The pictures 
of heaven presented in the book of Revelation are of a 
place and state of intense, diversified, and continuous 
activity. Some years ago a woman in New England who 
had led a long life of wearing toil and service, was asked 
what was her sweetest thought of heaven. She replied, 
" A whole eternity with nothing to do ! " Probably this 
poor toiling woman had an excuse in her previous life of 
unending labor for such a low conception, but " a whole 
eternity with nothing to do " would mean a very dull 
and stupid existence. Besides, that is not the Scriptural 



WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF HEAVEN? 51 

teaching. Doubtless we shall need on the other shore, 
after the toils and buffetings of this life are over, a season 
of perfect repose and refreshment, but after that, the 
Scriptures teach, shall come a fresh start in holy, raptur- 
ous service. Just what the nature of that activity will 
be we cannot know now but, carrying with us the fac- 
ulties and qualities of mind and heart that have been 
developed here, we may expect occupation and service 
over yonder similar to our work on earth, but free from 
all weariness and drudgery and guided by the Spirit of 
God. The great preacher Charles H. Spurgeon used 
to say that he hoped that in the spirit-life God would send 
him to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the in- 
habitants of some far distant planet who had never heard 
it. A famous English scientist expressed his desire to 
study higher mathematics in heaven. The unfinished 
works of earth we may have opportunity to complete, the 
noble ideals which beckoned us on but which we were 
not able to translate into accomplishments we may be 
permitted to fulfill. Or, it is quite possible that our char- 
acters may need to be developed in entirely different 
directions and so may be assigned new activities, unlike 
any attempted before. But whatever our work may be, it 
will be full of holy love and redemptive service and 
free from the weakness of the flesh and the folly of our 
earthly blunders. What spiritual joy and grandeur in 
such a prospect! The happiest moment in any of our 
lives has been when, most conscious of the Divine Spirit's 
guidance, we have given ourselves most fully in loving 
redemptive ministration to others. 

The supreme thought of heaven given in the Bible is 
that of communion with God and victory over moral evil. 
The Psalmist, catching a glimpse of the soul's high 
destiny, wrote : " As for me, I will behold thy face in 



52 THE PRECEDING GOD 

righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy 
likeness/' In Revelation we read of the redeemed: 
" They shall see his face ; and his name shall be on their 
foreheads. ,, The forehead symbolizes man's higher, intel- 
lectual, spiritual life. This life shall be in perfect harmony 
with God, his name or nature or will being regnant in 
man. To be like God, to know God, to enjoy communion 
with God — this is the goal of all our highest ideals and 
efforts. All life is but a training-school for this. Home 
life, the filial and the parental relationships, victories and 
defeats, joys and sorrows, the worship and work of God's 
house, the redemptive work of Christ and the presence 
of the Holy Spirit in the soul — all these are consummated 
in the beatific vision of God in heaven. The crowning 
teaching of the last book of the Bible is that, after the 
ages of struggle between the forces of evil and the hosts 
of righteousness, goodness and truth and love and Christ 
will be victorious. We are told that the Lamb, symboliz- 
ing all the pure and gentle and sacrificial elements in life, 
will overcome the beast, symbolizing all the destructive 
elements. Throughout the wonderful pictures and sym- 
bols of this Book we have the vision of victory and the 
praises and adorations offered by the countless redeemed 
ones to the Lord God and to Christ, the redeeming Lamb. 
Oh, let us not fail of entering heaven. Miss anything 
and everything if we must, but let none of us fail of 
heaven. Jesus is the all-sufficient Saviour. He only is 
the Door to the eternal life of blessedness. He says, 
" Him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out." 
Come to him now by simple faith and unreserved sur- 
render. Put yourself fully on his side. Let us by faith 
in Christ and by noble devotion begin the practise of 
immortality and the heaven-life here and now. The 
future life then will continually call to all our noblest 



WHAT SHALL WE THINK OF HEAVEN? 53 

possibilities and ideals : " Awake, Awake." Let us live 
beneath the power of the unseen world. May the words 
written of one of the noble Puritans be true of us : 

Of this blest man let this high praise be given : 
Heaven was in him before he was in heaven. 

So shall we have power and joy and hope in our present 
task. So, looking out on the immensities and glories of 
the future, life here will never become dull and prosaic, 
but each new day, bringing us nearer the wonders of 
heaven, will have a halo of holy faith and expectancy. 



" THIS SAME JESUS " x 

* This same Jesus."— Acts 1 : 11. 

THE study of beginnings is always of interest and 
value. The tiny plant, the spring of water on the 
hillside, the little child, the heroic company of Pilgrim 
Fathers on the " Mayflower " — these appeal to our 
thought and emotion. Our text is from words spoken 
to a little group of men starting on the most glorious 
career with new and lofty ideals. The Book of Acts is 
a record of wonderful beginnings. In it we have the 
beginnings of the universal outpouring and reception 
of the Holy Spirit, the beginning of the Christian church, 
the beginning of great revivals, the beginning of the mis- 
sionary enterprise, the beginning of the sublime spiritual 
development of humanity whose fruitage we enjoy today. 
In our text we have a rich source of inspiration for all 
these beginnings and for fresh starts today in our own 
lives. "This same Jesus, who is taken up from you 
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have 
seen him go into heaven." This was what the angels said 
to the waiting disciples overwhelmed by the thought that 
Christ was taken from them. This is a message we need 
in these days of perplexity and spiritual depression. 
There are many voices of doubt and despair, but over 
against them all as our keynote, as our shining star 

1 Notes of first sermon as pastor of the First Baptist Church, Rochester, 
N. Y. 

54 



" THIS SAME JESUS " 55 

amidst dark clouds, we put the words, " This same 
Jesus." 

Think first of the value and blessedness of that which 
continues the same in its helpful, redemptive power 
through all circumstances. Wherever a force or a person 
has the element of faithfulness, of abidingness, our hearts 
instantly respond with joy and trust. This is recognized 
as the supreme test. Does it last? Does it endure? 
This gives confidence and tranquillity. This completes 
the task begun. An Alpine guide in Switzerland showed 
his staff for mountain climbing to several tourists and 
said, " This staff has never failed me, even on the 
steepest and most slippery mountain sides." A fearful 
drought parched up the streams and wells and all the 
springs of water near Rochester a few summers ago ex- 
cept one spring, whose sweet, refreshing waters flowed 
throughout the long, dry summer. It was an unfailing 
fountain. So is it with a true friend. In a competition 
in London several years ago for the best definition of a 
friend in a single sentence the following won the prize, 
" A friend is that one who comes in when all the others 
go out." So it is with a true and axiomatic principle 
of life — it must be universally applicable, not failing in 
any emergency. For instance, " It is better to be than 
to seem," or, " No matter what happens, it is better to 
be true than to be false." But sameness and unchange- 
ableness in these illustrative cases does not mean that 
they are colorless, monotonous, and without variety of 
manifestation. They are the same in dependableness and 
helpfulness, but, with our varying needs and growing 
knowledge and different crises, they minister to us in 
accord with each special occasion. For instance, the 
sturdy staff may be used for the dangerous ascent of the 
ice-clad mountainside or for defense in struggle with 



56 THE PRECEDING GOD 

the wild beast or for pleasure in the Swiss games. The 
fountain has a great variety of service. It quenches our 
thirst, its waters cleanse the body, its loveliness ministers 
to our sense of beauty. The friend, the true friend, meets 
our varying moods of joy and of sorrow, of memory and 
of hope, of appreciation of the past and of progress 
onward to greater achievements. He grows with our 
growth and fails us not in helpful praise or in timely 
warning. 

These analogies suggest — yet how faintly and dimly !— 
the glorious sameness and unchangeableness of Christ. 
He never fails in his redemptive, saving power either the 
individual or the human race. Throughout the hours 
and the years and the centuries he meets with healing, 
conquering grace and power all the new crises and diffi- 
culties. While his supreme work of redeeming us and 
bringing us to God and God to us is ever the same, yet 
the manifestations of this work are as new and various 
as human needs are different and strange. He meets all 
the new problems. From him comes to us new spiritual 
beauty and help in every period of our lives. The stars 
are full of beauty and wonder to the child but far more 
beautiful to the same child grown up to educated man- 
hood. Upon all the changes and upheavals of the 
centuries shines the light of Christ's redeeming power. 
Never have we realized the instability of all earthly 
things so vividly as during the recent years. Philosophies, 
theologies, governments, civilizations have changed, are 
changing. The Creator seems to have planned change 
and movement as fundamental facts and forces of life. 
Often we long for permanency in our own individual 
experiences. To some blessed fellowship, to some gra- 
cious vision of natural beauty, to some deep spiritual 
experience, we cry, " Haste not away ; abide with us ! n 



" THIS SAME JESUS " 57 

In vain. We are flung into a swift current of events, 
sweeping us on and ever on with resistless change. Now 
on this shifting panorama of life we behold the unchang- 
ing Christ. The angels in our text say, " This same 
Jesus." The inspired writer of the letter to the Hebrews 
(13 : 8) gives the same thrilling message, " Jesus Christ 
the same yesterday, today, and forever." 

What do we mean by the eternal unchangeableness of 
Christ? Ah, here are depths and heights beyond our 
poor thought and expression ! However, we may say, in 
brief, that the glorious redemptive qualities manifested 
by Christ during his short earthly ministry are continued 
through all the ages by the work of the Divine Spirit, 
that Christ, as he promised, is continually coming back 
to us through the Holy Spirit. We do not worship a 
dead Christ, but one who is alive forevermore and up- 
lifting society and the individual by his grace and holi- 
ness and power. The eternal unchangeableness of Christ . 
is emphasized to us by the fact that he is the objective 
manifestation of the invisible Creator and Sustainer of 
the universe. God, the Creator, no man hath seen or 
can see, but Christ is the uttered thought, the Word of 
God. All the divine appearances in the Old Testament 
were revelations through Christ. Since God is the abso- 
lute, perfect Being, he cannot change in his holy, re- 
demptive love. Hence Christ, his supreme Word, must 
partake of the same element of changelessness. This 
unchangeableness is seen from the character of the divine 
appearances in the Old Testament. These are marked by 
the same characteristics as those of Jesus, the Son of 
Mary, by mingled love and holiness. The New Testa- 
ment presents Christ as the One who, from the founda- 
tion of the world, has guided and inspired all seekers after 
truth. " That was the true Light, which lighteth every 



^ 



58 THE PRECEDING GOD 

man who cometh into the world" (John 1:9). What- 
ever was good in the teachings of Confucius or Buddha 
or Socrates came from the living Christ. The Scriptures 
teach that during Christ's ministry in Palestine he only 
began his work, that his redeeming intercession abidetfi 
forever. Far down the ages, in the consummation of 
history, St. John the seer catches the vision of Jesus in 
heaven like unto a " Lamb as it had been slain," infinite 
love forevermore longing and yearning after humanity. 
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit brings strongly to our 
hearts the fact of Christ's unchangeableness. Said 
Bengel, the great German theologian, " Ubi Spiritus, ibi 
Christus " — " Where the Spirit is, there Christ is." After 
promising the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave his great assur- 
ance, " Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of 
the world." Thus through the Spirit Christ ever goes 
on before us beckoning onward and upward the march 
of humanity, guiding and blessing each individual soul, 
the Captain of salvation to each man no less than to the 
multitude. 

How wonderful are the verifications and illustrations 
of our theme in the experiences of Christian people 
through the ages. During the recent World War and in 
these days of spiritual reaction and depression many have 
been saying, " There never was such a crisis in human 
history, — what will become of our richest spiritual experi- 
ences and achievements ? " But we may answer that 
history is always moving from one crisis to another crisis 
and that there have been again and again periods of black 
and heart-rending retrogression when it seemed as if 
civilization would perish and the light of the gospel would 
be extinguished. In the early years of his world-moving 
work Martin Luther said : " Everything is so dark that I 
think the world will soon come to an end. The Christian 



" THIS SAME JESUS " 59 

Church today is like a timid woman surrounded by lions 
about to destroy her." But a few years later a mighty 
spiritual revival came to refresh the world. The truth 
is that the cause of Jesus Christ on earth is always threat- 
ened with destruction but ever rises triumphant over all 
foes within and without. This is true because of the 
constant spiritual presence of Christ with his humble, 
praying, working disciples. Multitudes of Christ's fol- 
lowers have been as conscious of his nearness and blessing 
as were the apostles when the Saviour was here in a 
human body. In recent years some Armenian sufferers, 
tormented unto death by Turkish murderers, were heard 
to call again and again upon " General Jesus/' as if he 
were close at hand. As they did so, such strength and 
spiritual beauty came to their faces as to overcome the 
men who were putting them to death. 

" This same Jesus/' In the glorious unchangeableness 
of Christ is involved the comforting assurance that he 
bears this earth, this life, the people living here upon 
his heart. He lived here, he loved the homes and streets 
and men and women and children of our world. Now 
in glory, being the same Jesus, he still cares for us. 
This is the chief glory of our little planet as it floats 
through space, that Christ once lived here and that 
he still cares for this world. In this fact is our supreme 
consolation and inspiration. I heard recently of a tender, 
heart-moving picture suggested by the war. A young 
widow in her mourning dress is portrayed seated and 
holding a little child in her arms. She is gazing on the 
picture hanging on the wall of the soldier fallen in battle. 
But that was not all of the picture. By a bold stroke of 
a spiritual imagination the artist depicted above the widow 
and child and above the portrait of the young officer the 
face of Jesus looking down upon it all with ineffable 



60 THE PRECEDING GOD 

love and compassion! So doubtless he gazes upon us 
now. 

" This same Jesus " died for us upon the cross. This 
supreme, mysterious culmination of Christ's redemptive 
work, " the suffering of his soul being the soul of his 
suffering," our Lord carries with him into the other life. 
The Cross was the supreme outpouring of the divine 
love for our salvation. In the heavenly life Christ is 
described in the book of Revelation as " the Lamb that 
was slain/' Still does he bear the marks of his supreme 
love and labor and anguish. Still is the divine love and 
sacrifice being poured out for our salvation. Most of us 
have read accounts of reported incidents of supernatural 
visitations to the soldiers in France during the battles of 
the great war. The ones reported concerning the appear- 
ances of Christ as " The White Comrade " will live 
long. The little book entitled, " The White Comrade," 
tells of a rough soldier who derided the idea of any 
spiritual or supernatural visitation. He was badly 
wounded in battle. Several nights after tossing in fever 
in the hospital, the dressings on his wound became dis- 
arranged. The White Comrade stood by him and gently 
bound up the wound. Awe-struck, the soldier saw some- 
thing unusual about the hands of him who bound up 
his wounds and asked, " What is that on your hand ? " 
" Oh," said the White Comrade, "that is an old wound 
that has been reopened of late." Ah, we may be sure that 
Christ's wounds have bled afresh in these recent years 
for the sin and woe of humanity. No matter how we 
may interpret these incidents of supernatural visitations 
reported as visible to the eyes, we know that spiritual 
comings of the living Christ are the most real facts of 
countless human lives. Multitudes of men and women 
today can say with humble, joyful assurance: "Jesus 



11 THIS SAME JESUS " 61 

Christ is the most certain reality of my life. He has 
saved my soul." They can say as the great hymn-writer 
wrote : 

Love I much? I've much forgiven, 

I'm a miracle of grace. 

" This same Jesus " is now clothed with heavenly glory. 
He is exalted in heaven to be King of Kings and Lord of 
Lords. All power is his. But being the same forever- 
more all his infinite resources are pledged in our behalf. 
St. Paul seems to have taken peculiar and ecstatic joy 
and hope in this thought. Hence he cries, " We are more 
than conquerors through him who loved us." 

" This same Jesus " will come again. This is the 
explicit declaration of the angels. We do not know 
just when he is coming; that is a secret hidden in the 
bosom of the Eternal God. We cannot dogmatize con- 
cerning times and seasons and details. The Scriptures 
seem to teach that there are several comings of Christ. 
At the Christian's death we believe that Jesus takes 
the redeemed soul to Paradise. In the great spiritual 
forward movements of Christ's kingdom through the 
centuries we behold new comings of Jesus. But crown- 
ing and consummating all these we look forward to the 
final glorious, personal appearing of Jesus to reign on 
earth. It is this final, glorious coming of our unchange- 
able Saviour that Robert Browning seems to have in 
mind in his thrilling lines: 

Earth breaks up, time drops awa3% 
In flows Heaven, with its new day 
Of endless life, when He who trod, 
Very Man and very God, 
This earth in weakness, shame, and pain, 
Dying the death whose signs remain, 
Up yonder on the accursed tree — 



62 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Shall come again, no more to be 

Of captivity the thrall, 

But the one God, All in all; 

King of kings, Lord of lords, 

As His servant John received the words, 

" I died, and live f orevermore ! " 

It is a great mystery. But this is our faith and hope 
which looms up over all the landscape of future human 
history like a majestic mountain peak beckoning us on 
and ever on. " This same Jesus." 

Let us be loyal in our faith and influence to the 
teachings of our heavenly, unchanging Saviour, Helper, 
Lord. Let us not be carried about, tossed to and fro, by 
every new cult and doubt and philosophy of life. Let us 
be hospitable to new truth (if it be real truth), welcoming 
it from every quarter, but let us test it always with un- 
flinching fidelity by Jesus Christ and his great Gospel. 
The light and shadows come and go over the mountain, 
the rains fall, the winds beat upon its head, but the moun- 
tain remains. Human speculations never cease, creeds 
change, theories multiply, forms perish, but the Rock of 
Ages abides ; and he who clings to that Rock shall abide 
forever. As the Scotch scholar, Principal J. C. Shairp, 
has written: 

Subtlest thought shall fail and learning falter, 

Churches change, forms perish, systems go, 
But our human needs, they will not alter, 

Christ no after age shall e'er outgrow. 
Yea, Amen! O changeless One, Thou only, 

Art life's guide and spiritual goal, 
Thou the Light across the dark vale lonely — 

Thou the eternal haven of the soul. 

Let us pour out our best energies with glad hearts in 
the service of our changeless Christ. Poor and utterly 



t( 



THIS SAME JESUS " 63 



futile seem many of our efforts. Cecil Rhodes, who 
wrought so masterfully for South Africa and for En- 
gland and for the world, compressing such vast labors 
into a brief career, closed his life with the words : " So 
little done ; so much to do ! " But all service for the 
eternal Christ, be it little or great, will abide, linked 
with the changelessness of our celestial Master, safely 
guarded in the care of the Divine administration. 



VI 
THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD 

" Not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." — Romans 

5: 5. 

ARTISTS find themselves sometimes in danger of 
losing their quick and delicate sense of color. 
Hence they find it necessary again and again to refresh 
their eyes with the primary colors in full radiance. It 
was the habit of a somewhat famous painter in this 
country to carry with him always precious jewels so 
that he could frequently gaze upon the green of the 
emerald, the blue of the sapphire, the red of the ruby, 
the flashing splendor of the diamond. In the moral 
and spiritual world, we are constantly in danger of being 
so injured by the sophistry and wickedness of men as to 
lose our recognition and appreciation of the highest and 
most spiritual truths. This danger has been especially 
great in the recent years of the great war whose horrors 
have threatened the most precious things in life. Hence 
we need to turn constantly to the great first principles 
and facts of our holy Christian religion for the refresh- 
ment and correction of our souls. The supreme principle 
of that religion is the holy, redemptive love of God and 
the supreme fact, or manifestation, of that love is Jesus 
Christ, his incarnation, character, gospel, death, lesur- 
rection, and present life in the world through the Holy 
Spirit. Our text brings before us that love and that 
64 



THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD 65 

manifestation. The inspired writer has been setting forth 
the blessed results of salvation and justification through 
faith in Christ when he says : " And hope maketh not 
ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our 
hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. For 
when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ 
died for the ungodly/' Consider the text phrase by 
phrase. 

First, " the love of God." Here we have the fountain 
and foundation of our salvation and sanctification and 
of all the joy and beauty of life. The expression is 
very strong in the original. There are two Greek words 
in the New Testament for love. There is the word 
phileo, which refers to transient, emotional, sometimes 
sensual love, and is the word which the erring disciple 
Peter used before he had been fully reclaimed to express 
his affection for Christ. Then there is the word agapao, 
which expresses a love that is divine, eternal, unchang- 
ing, spiritual, holy, redemptive. This is the sublime word 
used in our text. The phrase refers primarily to God's 
love for us rather than our love for him. How wonder- 
ful is the fact that so much more is said in the Bible 
about God's love for us than about our love for God! 
A careful Bible student has said that the phrase " the 
love of God," used so often, refers in all cases except 
three to God's love for us rather than to our love for 
God. There is something very comforting and inspir- 
ing about this, and the fact kindles our own feeble love 
to new fervor. As we meditate over the blessed fact 
that God loves us, even us in all our folly and sin, then 
love for God rises in our hearts and takes possession of 
our lives. A son, whose father died in his early years, 
and whose face he cannot remember, receives on reaching 
manhood innumerable proofs of that father's care and 



66 THE PRECEDING GOD 

generous provision and tender devotion, and his heart 
is melted by tokens of such a love. Miss Frances E. 
Willard, one of the most useful and eloquent and con- 
secrated women who ever lived, used to love to repeat 
for her own comfort and cheer the chorus, or refrain, 
of an old Southern plantation melody, 

Maybe the Lord will be glad of me, 
Maybe the Lord will be glad of me, 
In heaven he'll rejoice. 

She said that the words and the music touched a 
chord very far down in her heart and in moments of 
weariness and discouragement brought love and glad- 
ness into her heart by the message of God's gladness 
and love for us. So the way to learn to love God is to 
keep on thinking of God's love for us. As Horace 
Bushnell wrote two generations ago, " Loving God is 
letting God love us." 

Three characteristics, or manifestations, of the love of 
God are brought out in the verse closely linked to our 
text by the little but very important word " for." 

It is a suffering love. " For Christ died for the ungod- 
ly." God's deepest love and life were poured out in the 
sufferings and death of Christ. The great English poet 
Cowper gazing on his mother's portrait is stirred to the 
depths of his soul by his thoughts of her goodness and 
sweetness and cries, " Oh that those lips had language! " 
So to us the cross is in a real sense the face, the 
heart, the voice of God revealing his boundless, redemp- 
tive love. The sacrificial, suffering element wins and 
overwhelms us. It is so with love for country. The true 
patriot is the one who is willing to sacrifice for his coun- 
try. It is so with the love of a friend. The true friend 
is the one who stays closest to us when our need is 



THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD 67 

greatest. It is true with a mother's love that its deepest 
secret of power is the element of sacrifice ever throbbing 
at its heart. Above all, in Christ's suffering and death — 
" the suffering of his soul being the soul of his suffer- 
ing " — God's love meets us and holds us and in life or at 
death we cry, " Simply to thy Cross I cling." 

God's love is for the unlovely : " When we were yet 
without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." 
" But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while 
we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." This is the 
glory of our Christian religion that God's love reaches 
down to the lowest depths and lifts us to the highest 
heights. As the prophet Isaiah cried, " Thou hast loved 
my soul out of the pit." So the very nature of God is holy 
love. He sees bright possibilities in the vilest and most 
degraded. He loves the unlovely and redeems the foulest. 
A wealthy society woman of Chicago sang at a religious 
service in the penitentiary at Joliet, Illinois, and the sight 
of the criminals so moved her that she burst into tears and 
sat down. Her emotion and weeping had a tremendous 
effect on the hardened men, and many of them wept 
because, as they said, " Such a lovely lady really cared 
for such rascals as we are." When we begin to realize 
that God's heart keeps on following us in our wicked ways 
then we too weep for shame and for spiritual longing 
and for hope for a new life. 

God's love comes to us at the critical moment, in the 
time of greatest need, " In due time Christ died for the 
ungodly." In the time of greatest need in history when 
civilizations were going to pieces and nations were plung- 
ing to destruction, Christ came and taught and died and 
rose again and saved the world and the individual. Thus 
always God's love comes to the world and to each of us 
at the supreme crises, when everything seems lost, and 



68 THE PRECEDING GOD 

changes the worst to the best. Not from nature or from 
conscience or from human fellowships do we learn God's 
love until first we have found it at the Cross of Christ, 
where we behold the mystery of God's redeeming love 
and grace. Then everywhere we see him and his bound- 
less, transfiguring love. What could St. Paul say or do in 
Rome to win and save men? He had no money, no 
worldly influence. His source of power, through the 
Holy Spirit, was in his message to Rome, to the world, 
to himself. This is the one message and dynamic for 
us. Everything is to be judged by the standard, Is it 
like God's love? Then we shall learn how to pray, how 
to forgive, how to bless others, and thus how to rejoice at 
all times. 

The second phrase of the text — "the shedding abroad 
in the heart " of God's love — is a remarkable one. It 
means literally to be freely, abundantly, copiously poured 
out. An old farmer, speaking about the crops during an 
unusually dry summer, said, " We need a long and heavy 
rainfall, not a rain of a few moments or hours, but one 
of several days, so that the ground may be soaked and all 
the roots of vegetation drenched and revived." That is 
the thought here. The love of God so shed abroad in 
us that the very roots of our character may be changed— 
emotions kindled, imagination purified, will-power 
strengthened, love chastened, the whole personality trans- 
figured. David speaks of the abundance of the precious 
perfume bestowed upon the Aaronic priest in his prepara- 
tion for his sacred office. It was poured upon his head, 
it ran down over his long beard, it went down over the 
skirts of his garments so that his whole body was covered 
with consecrated and consecrating symbolic perfume. In 
our Lord's life we are told of how when Mary anointed 



THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD 69 

his weary feet with very costly spikenard that she poured 
out the perfume so freely that the house was filled with 
the exquisite odor. Thus, our text teaches that our 
whole character is to be penetrated and controlled by 
God's love. A significant expression of the late Prof. 
William James of Harvard University is that of " the 
unexplored remainders " in human personality. I sup- 
pose one of the thoughts connected with the phrase is 
that in most of us — perhaps all of us — there are un- 
aroused, untouched possibilities waiting to be awakened. 
Now when the love of God floods the soul all these hidden 
powers leap up into joy and service. Then we know God 
and all Godlike things by personal experience, then we 
know that we know so that the love of God becomes the 
fountain light and spring of all our being. This is the 
real turning-point and redemption and glorification of 
life. It was so with St. Paul, who, when the light of 
God's love in Christ was revealed to him, became the 
greatest and most influential character in human history, 
because he could humbly yet joyously say, " I live ; yet 
not I, but Christ liveth in me." It was so with St. 
Francis of Assisi whose home in the hill-town country of 
Italy we visited several years ago. Born in Assisi in 
1182, he became a careless, wicked young man until 
through many sufferings he was brought to repentance 
and to humble faith in Jesus Christ. Then the great 
love of God took possession of his soul as it has of few 
in the world's history, and in the darkest and most 
terrible time in the Middle Ages he became God's agent 
to bring back, through the Spirit, love and kindness and 
trust and a new start for humanity. His love seemed 
invincible and went out to all created things and to the 
wickedest outcasts. The fishes he called " little brothers," 
the birds " little sisters," the bear " brother bear," the 



70 THE PRECEDING GOD 

fugitive criminal he followed with a message of Christ's 
all-sufficient grace and hope. Thus has it been through 
the ages; when the love of God becomes regnant in 
human souls, then miracles of transfiguration of char- 
acter are wrought and the wildernesses of life blossom 
into beauty and fragrance. You have witnessed the heav- 
enly transformation in some quiet lives in the circle of 
your acquaintance. Oh that this abundant shedding 
abroad of God's love may take place in our own char- 
acters! Then shall we find it easy to love, to serve, to 
suffer, to conquer. Deeper, deeper, ever deeper, may the 
divine love sink into our souls ! 

But how may this miracle of Divine Grace be wrought 
in us ? — The fourth phrase of the text reveals the secret — 
" through the Holy Spirit who was given unto us." Here 
is the first allusion to the Holy Spirit in this greatest 
letter of the inspired apostle. This is a remarkable fact 
as if to teach that the one supreme work of the Holy 
Spirit is to fill the soul with the holy love of God and in 
doing that to give all spiritual power and peace and joy. 
This is in accord with St. Paul's teaching in his letter to 
the Galatians where he says, " The fruit of the Spirit is 
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, 
faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5 : 22, 23). As the 
sunbeams reach us through the agency of the air, and the 
electric currents over the wires, and the water through 
the pipes, and the assurance of a friend's devotion by his 
tender, loyal spirit, somehow so, but far more gloriously 
and mysteriously, the assurance of the eternal love is 
given unto us when we open our hearts in humble, yearn- 
ing, continued prayer. When " the heavenly air is breath- 
ing round " then the heavenly love is shed abroad in our 
hearts. But we must long for the Divine Spirit. A great 
English painter depicts man with his hands uplifted 



THE LOVE OF GOD SHED ABROAD 71 

toward the stars and crying out, " I want, I want." The 
shining stars, with their glorious mystery, can never 
satisfy man's immortal spirit, but God's Spirit bringing 
the fulness of God's love can and will. 

" Not ashamed " — this is the blessed result of the 
love of God shed abroad in the heart. Some translate 
the expression " not overwhelmed " or " not disgraced " 
or " not panic-stricken." How we draw back with fear 
and horror from thoughts of failure or dishonor or death. 
But our real selves, our spiritual personalities cannot be 
hurt or even touched by any calamity or foe if we are 
filled and kept by the holy, redemptive love of God. St. 
Paul never was ashamed or panic-stricken even in the 
sufferings and tragedies of his last months in Rome. 
Midst gathering clouds and lightning flashes and agonies 
of soul and body before being led out to be put to death 
by Nero's executioners, he could write, w I know whom 
I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to 
keep that which I have committed unto him against that 
day. . . The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, 
and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom." 

" The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the 
Holy Spirit " — this is the heavenly gateway to salvation, 
sanctification, peace, joy, power. This is for the whole 
world now and will bring in a new era of justice and 
peace and brotherhood. This is for every church of 
Jesus Christ now and will lead the way to new spiritual 
victories. This is for each individual now and will solve 
every problem and make life beautiful and strong with 
uplifting, healing influence. It was said of Fenelon that 
he had such communion with God that his face shone. 
On one occasion a worldly and sceptical English noble- 
man was compelled to spend the night with him at a 
little French inn. In the early morning he hastened away, 



72 THE PRECEDING GOD 

saying, " If I stay another night with that man, I shall 
be a Christian in spite of myself." Oh wonderful love of 
God which gives us Christ and all spiritual treasures 
and which can make our poor lives rich with blessing for 
all with whom we come in contact ! 



VII 
MAKING A FEfESH START IN PRAYER 

"Verily I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on 
earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done 
for them of my Father who is in heaven. For where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst 
of them."— Matthew 18 : 19, 20. 

OUR Saviour during his earthly life was ever anx- 
ious to encourage and lift up even the weakest 
struggler. When he utters great truths or enjoins difficult 
tasks, he follows them usually with bright promises and 
rewards. So it is here. He urges two most difficult 
duties — the giving up of cherished earthly instruments 
that we may not lose God's favor and heaven, and the 
making of reconciliation and peace with one who has 
wronged us. Then, to give us strength for these hard 
tasks, he gives us the rich, invigorating words of our 
text : " If two of you shall agree on earth as touching 
anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them 
of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them/' 

When we make a fresh start in prayer, we make a 
fresh start in everything good. If we pray well, we 
shall do everything well. Prayer links us anew to God. 
Prayer opens up a channel through which treasures from 
infinite resources come into the soul. We are longing 
for a great spiritual movement, a revival of religion, to 
heal the wounds of the war, to bring in a new era for 

73 



74 THE PRECEDING GOD 

every individual, for all churches and nations, for the 
whole world. We must first of all make a fresh start 
in prayer. 

Individuals and nations differ in many things, but they 
all pray. In the recent great war nearly all the dying 
soldiers — Americans, English, French, Italian, Russian, 
Polish, German— with their last words prayed. People 
differ in an extraordinary way as to their theories of 
prayer and of religion, but they all pray. Prayer is ever 
with us. There is the extreme ritualist bowing before 
shrines which seem to somje vain memorials. There is 
the Quaker, at the other extreme, sitting still in a bare 
room waiting for an inward spiritual movement. There 
are the followers of recent strange cults and theories who 
say there is no pain and no sin, but, nevertheless, they 
have their prayers. Agnostics and even so-called in- 
fidels in great emergencies pray. It is said that Voltaire 
in a terrific storm in the Alps fell upon his knees and 
prayed. In recent years an English sceptic in great 
anguish, cried out, " O God, if there be a God, save my 
soul, if I have a soul." Prayer is ever with us. This 
fact that we cannot escape it just as a living man can- 
not escape breathing, is one of the proofs of the deep, 
inherent reasonableness of prayer. Of course there is 
mystery in prayer and its answer, but it is a blessed 
mystery of life and light. There is always mystery in 
life. We cannot explain just how the seed becomes 
the plant or how the tree absorbs the nourishment of 
soil and dew and sunshine and produces the crimson- 
hued apples. Prayer is inescapable because of the pathos 
and tragedy of life, because of man's weakness and 
dependence. None of us can escape the tragic element in 
life, seasons of overwhelming disappointment and per- 
sonal insufficiency, when our souls turn to God in- 



MAKING A FRESH START IN PRAYER 75 

stinctively as our only refuge. Mrs. Browning's lines are 
absolutely true to the facts of human experience: 

Eyes, which the preacher could not school, 

By wayside graves are raised, 
And lips say, " God be pitiful," 

Who ne'er said, " God be praised." 

But prayer is with us always, likewise, because of the 
very grandeur of man's spiritual nature. Man's life is 
many-sided. Through the senses he has relationships 
with the physical world, through love and thought he 
has beautiful fellowships with humanity, and through his 
spiritual endowments and attainments he has communion 
with God. This is his supreme, most glorious life, the 
life of the soul, made in the likeness of God and made 
for God. An American poet has written as truly as the 
English poet just quoted: 

In the great primeval morn 
My immortal will was born, 
Part of that stupendous Cause 
Which conceived the solar laws, 
Lit the suns and filled the seas, 
Realists of pedigrees. 

These lines of the poet are simply an echo of Scripture 
affirmations : " God created man in his own image " ; 
" Also He hath set eternity in their heart." Thus, man 
is always seeking after God in prayer because of the very 
nature of his soul which is ever consciously, or uncon- 
sciously, reaching out after the great Father of spirits in 
whose likeness he was made. 

Surely we may say then that prayer is the most reason- 
able act of the human soul, in accord with the highest 
thought and noblest instincts, and founded upon the deep- 
est realities of life. From the facts of the world about 



76 THE PRECEDING GOD 

us and of human nature and the teachings of history 
and of the greatest thinkers and saintliest souls and 
of the Bible we believe in prayer. From the fact 
of God we deduce the reasonableness and the inescap- 
ableness of prayer. If there be a God, then 
is it not in accord with the highest reason that he 
communicate himself, that he answer prayers? Power 
and goodness in nature and in humanity find their glory 
in responding, in giving. Think of how man's will and 
skill can alter the aspect of nature, changing the wilder- 
ness into the garden, developing the Japanese daisy into 
the splendid chrysanthemum. Why should it be thought 
strange that the great and good God should work 
changes in response to the cry of his trustful, obedient 
children? Jesus Christ, the holiest, wisest, best, most 
Divine One, was ever praying and ever urging us to pray 
and giving promises, encouragements, rewards for prayer. 

So in our text Jesus gives comforting and inspiring 
assurances to help us to fresh faith in prayer. Let us 
notice the elements and conditions of the prayer he em- 
phasizes. 

The promise is for persons on earth. Sometimes we 
feel that if we were lifted up above the earth, or if we 
knew more, we could pray better. At night, gazing sky- 
ward, we have thought that the inhabitants of the shining 
stars (if there be inhabitants yonder) doubtless prayed 
more acceptably than we poor dwellers upon this little 
planet. But this promise is for those struggling here 
upon the earth. It is not for the angels or for the re- 
deemed spirits. Perhaps in heaven all petition is trans- 
figured into praise, but here on earth our souls must con- 
stantly cry out in strong desire and supplication. This 
gracious promise is for those on the earth. What con- 
solation and inspiration! A state of dependence may 



MAKING A FRESH START IN PRAYER 77 

mean a state of especial privilege. The youngest child, 
most feeble in strength, wins the tenderest care and solici- 
tude of the entire household. I saw a strong, loving 
father in a field covered with snow break a pathway for 
his children, but he stooped down and lifted the smallest 
child to his bosom and carried him high above all the 
obstacles in the way. It is said that, while John Bunyan 
loved all his family, he had a peculiar devotion for a 
little blind daughter. Jesus teaches that on the throne 
of the universe a Father sits, and here he tells us that 
petition to God is one of our peculiar privileges while on 
this earth, with all its toils and sorrows. God pities this 
earth with its sins and sufferings, broods over it with 
infinite love and compassion, and will answer in the 
wisest way every cry that goes up from even the lowest 
place. Oh, then let us while here on the earth realize 
anew that prayer, both petition and adoring communion, 
is our chief privilege and duty. 

Our Lord next tells us that this promise is for more 
than one, it is for two, it is for " two or three/' for united, 
associated, common prayer rather than individual, private 
devotion. There are blessings for private prayer, when 
we " shut the door " and in secret pour out our souls to 
God. But there is great stimulus to our faith and 
spiritual joy when united with others in our worship and 
petition. Coleridge in his most famous poem depicts the 
loneliness of " The Ancient Mariner " : 

Alone, alone, all, all alone, 
Alone on a wide, wide sea! 
And never a saint took pity on 
My soul in agony. 

His loneliness was brought on him because he had 
sinned against love and, hence, he was unable to pray. 



78 THE PRECEDING GOD 

But when he was restored to love he was able to pour out 
his soul to God. Jesus here emphasizes the value of 
human love and friendship as related to our fellowship 
with God. Here we have the basis for prayer-meetings, 
for family worship. How greatly the world needs as- 
sociated, united prayer today ! Think of the triumphs of 
such prayer with Elijah and Elisha, with Peter and John, 
with Paul and Silas, with Augustine and Monica, with 
Chrysostom and Anthusa, with Luther and Melancthon, 
with the two Wesleys, with Moody and Stanley, with the 
long list of prayer-meetings that have glorified church 
history and transfigured human lives and sent mission- 
aries of the Cross to the ends of the world. Our greatest 
need now is more unceasing prayer from hearts bound 
together in the fellowship of Jesus. More prayer-meet- 
ings, more family worship, more friendships and mar- 
riages inspired and glorified by prayer ! " Two or three/' 
" two or three ! " 

Jesus teaches here that prayer should be as broad 
as is human life, that it is applicable to every need and 
aspiration of the soul, for he says, " As touching anything 
that they shall ask." How wide and many-sided and 
rich! Nothing is too great and nothing too small for 
prayer. It is like the wide harbor, bearing on its bosom 
the great ocean steamships and also the little row- 
boats, it is like the majestic mountain with sufficient room 
for an army of men, with a shelter likewise for the little 
child. We should link prayer with everything — work, 
play, joy, sorrow, friends, foes, life, sickness, death, but 
above all with our spiritual growth. Prayer is intended 
chiefly for the seeking for the conscious presence of God 
in our souls, for the fellowship of the Divine with the 
human. God may often see that it would not be best 
for us to have the things which we seek, but he will give 



MAKING A FRESH START IN PRAYER 79 

us always spiritual treasures better than all earthly things. 
He will give himself, thus giving everything really de- 
sirable and good. As the plant through its roots and 
leaves takes hold of the life-giving, nourishing forces of 
nature, as the machines in the factory are linked to the 
central power-plant, as the trusting, searching, toiling 
minds of students come in contact with the great treasures 
of human thought, somehow so in prayer we lay hold 
of God for anything and everything good for our highest 
life. He loves us so much and is so desirous of helping 
us that we do not have to overcome any willingness on 
his part. He is more willing to give than we are to 
ask — anything, everything that will be truly a blessing 
to us. 

But Jesus gives another striking word here which 
throws a bright light on prayer — the word " agree. " 
This supplication from two or three must come from 
hearts that are in loving harmony. The word agree is a 
remarkably rich and suggestive one in the original 
Greek, smnphoneo, from which we have our word 
symphony. We all know that a symphony is a concert, 
or musical entertainment in which a great variety of 
voices or of musical instruments, each preserving its dis- 
tinctive charm, blend in perfect, exquisite harmony. Per- 
haps here is suggested a reason why some of our prayers 
have not been answered. Hearts and voices have not 
symphonized in loving harmony. So the real spiritual 
beauty of the music of love has fled, so our prayers have 
not had power. A critical or unforgiving spirit cuts us 
off from God. As Coleridge wrote, "He prayeth best 
who loveth best." 

How may we have this symphony of love, this blend- 
ing of different personalities into sympathetic fellowship 
in prayer ? Christ gives here the sublime method, " For 



80 THE PRECEDING GOD 

where two or three are gathered together in my name, 
there am I in the midst of them." The actual presence 
through the Holy Spirit of the living Christ! Here is 
the secret and the source of the loving fellowship. Take 
the illustration borrowed from music again. In the con- 
cert, or symphony, there is the greatest variety of singers 
and of players upon different musical instruments. Each 
one has its distinctive note, its peculiar glory, but all 
are merged and glorified into a great river of rapturous 
song or a thrilling current of orchestral melody. But 
how? Through the musical genius of the leader or con- 
ductor of the orchestra. The eyes of all the singers and 
of all the players upon musical instruments must be 
fastened upon him and his waving baton and his gestures 
of direction and all must be in complete, instinctive 
accord. So, when our eyes are fixed upon Christ, when 
our longings and yearnings are toward him, when our 
wills are seeking conformity to his blessed will, then shall 
we have deep, loving fellowship with men and women, 
and then shall our prayers bring rich blessings. Jesus 
Christ is the great spiritual center of all the waves of 
human thought and emotion. He binds together in him- 
self all the joys, sorrows, hopes, aspirations of humanity, 
and as we abide in him we shall be in fellowship with our 
human friends near at hand and far away. 

Then shall our prayers have rich reward. For Christ 
gives us his promises, " It shall be done for them of my 
Father who is in heaven." With what regal power, with 
what majesty, sweetness, and calmness Jesus speaks! 
No doubts, no fears, but the quiet, royal assurance, " It 
shall be done." This assurance is based on God's nature. 
He is the great spiritual reservoir of all love and wisdom 
and holiness, and it is his very nature to give out streams 
of blessing to all who yearn after him. He is the Life of 



MAKING A FRESH START IN PRAYER 81 

our lives, the Soul of our souls. As the ocean continually 
presses its waters into all the little inlets and bays of 
the shore, so God is forevermore pouring out his spiritual 
treasures into human lives seeking him. Prayer is a 
part of God's law wrought into the life of things. Just 
as there is beauty where there is an eye to see and melody 
where there is an ear to hear, so God's most glorious 
gifts can only come into the souls that pray. The brightest 
pages in human history and biography have constantly 
illustrated and confirmed Christ's promise here. Reread- 
ing the biography of George Muller of Bristol, England, 
recently some of us have been impressed anew with the 
extraordinary accomplishments of this humble man, poor 
in almost everything that the world usually prizes. He 
becomes one of the greatest spiritual leaders and philan- 
thropists of modern times because of God's answers to 
his prayers. Muller said that the only explanation of his 
life was God's goodness in answering unceasing prayers 
concerning everything. The " London Telegraph " said 
at the time of Muller's death, " He robbed the crue'l 
streets of thousands of victims, the gaols of thousands 
of felons, and the workhouse of thousands of helpless and 
hopeless waifs." Muller's one solution for every trial 
and problem was, Prayer and still more Prayer. He 
prayed for more than fifty years for the conversion of 
five friends. 

In the highest and best sense every prayer is always 
answered. Poets like Shakespeare and Tennyson, phi- 
losophers like Coleridge and Sir William Hamilton, 
statesmen like Lincoln and Lloyd George, soldiers like 
Robert E. Lee and Sir Douglas Haig and a vast number 
of others have rejoiced in prayer. Jesus Christ himself 
was the supreme example of unceasing prayer fulness. 
The praying nations have been the most influential ones. 



82 THE PRECEDING GOD 

The supreme moments and movements of history have 
been born in prayer. We are thinking now of the three- 
hundredth anniversary of the coming of our praying 
Pilgrim Fathers to this Western world to found a new 
commonwealth here. Well did Daniel Webster say of 
the " Mayflower," " Her deck was the altar of the living 
God." The greatest need of America, of each individual 
is more prayer. Prayer will bring in a new season of 
religious revival which will heal the wounds of the recent 
war. Prayer will be for us the channel through which 
the unspeakable spiritual treasures of God will pour in 
upon us. Then let us make a fresh start in prayer. Try 
it anew for yourself, morning, noon, and evening. Here 
is the safest refuge, the best inspiration, the secret of 
peace and joy and power. Let our watchword be, More 
prayer. Let us build anew the family altars in our homes. 
Let us give new devotion to the prayer-meeting services 
in our churches. Let us, as in other years of great 
religious interest, seek to have numerous small praying 
circles throughout the city. Let us build our friendships 
and all our human relationships around the thought of 
prayer, of communion with God. Then shall we have 
peace and joy in our own hearts, power over other lives, 
and the deep assurance of God's nearness. Prayerfulness 
is the secret of everything good and great. And the 
secret of prayer is in coming to Jesus as our Saviour and 
Lord. He says, " Come unto Me." He says again, " Him 
that cometh unto Me I will in nowise cast out." Come. 
Try him. Trust him. Then shall prayer become the 
habit of your life, the refuge of your soul. 



VIII 
CHRISTMAS AND HUMAN JOY 

A MEDITATION FOR CHRISTMAS MORNING 

" And the angel said unto them, Fear not : for behold, I bring 
you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people." — 
Luke 2 : 10. 

THAT is a pleasant little incident, touched both with 
humor and spiritual suggestiveness, in Lord Tenny- 
son's Memoir, of how the great poet visiting some humble 
friends of earlier years in the country, asked an old 
woman concerning the news. Her answer was, " Why, 
Mr. Tennyson, there's only one piece of news that I know, 
that Christ died for all men." Tennyson answered, 
" That is old news and good news and new news." So 
now, as the calm, bright light of the Christmastime 
shines into our lives, we are reminded that the supreme 
messages of the Christian facts and the Christian faith 
are old, yet ever to be translated into new experiences of 
the soul, and thus to become the best tidings possible for 
an immortal spirit. One old yet ever new and blessed 
truth is the ministry of Christmas to the joy of humanity. 
The intuition of little children and of the average normal 
man seizes hold of the truth in the greeting, " Merry 
Christmas." This is a thought which colors with beauty 
the memories of childhood which come to the aged. This 
is the ground of hope for the race in the sober thinking 
of philosopher and philanthropist — the historic fact that 
in most real and glorious sense God has through the 

83 



84 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Incarnation identified himself with humanity. The dom- 
inant note in the Scripture records of the birth of Christ 
and the dominant note of our wisest meditation and best 
faith concerning that event are the same. That note is 
joy, spiritual exhilaration, boundless hope. 

The birth of Jesus, the Divine Saviour, is, above all 
else, the source of humanity's richest, purest, most widely 
diffused happiness. " Good tidings of great joy, which 
shall be to all people," said the angel in announcing the 
birth of Christ, and each hastening year is a witness to 
the message. 

Let us think first of how deep is earth's need of joy. 

There is a natural craving in every heart for happiness. 
As the eye seeks the blue sky and the ear sweet music, so 
the soul instinctively reaches out after joy. From God 
and heaven, the home of bliss, came the soul, and it ever 
longs for its native element. The very follies and sins 
of man, as well as his goodness and high aspirations, 
testify to this deep yearning. But earth cannot give real, 
satisfying joy to an immortal spirit. Earth does give 
sorrow — sorrow from sin, from mistaken judgment, from 
loneliness, from toil, from sense of mystery, from death. 
Just in proportion as a soul is noble and finely strung can 
it suffer. 

Earth's need of peace and gladness was never greater 
than when this message of the angels came. Everywhere 
were moral corruption, intellectual unrest, spiritual 
gloom, heart-anguish. The quiet heavens seemed in their 
silent unresponsiveness to mock the prayers of the pious, 
faithful few. Injustice and savagery and lust were en- 
throned in the high places. There was Herod with his 
bloody sword. There was the Governor of Judaea, to 
whom the holiest memories and hopes of God's chosen 
people were but idle tales. There was the Imperial City 



CHRISTMAS AND HUMAN JOY 85 

on the Tiber, where religion, home life, the worth of 
the individual, had gone down to seemingly irrevocable 
shame and ruin. 

Palestine, for many generations the theater of desola- 
ing wars, was a land of widows and orphans, of pauper- 
ism and disease, lying in the shadow of death and 
despair. 

After the passage of the centuries, humanity's need is 
just as great — even greater, for intellectual and spiritual 
progress only deepen and intensify yearnings and aspir- 
ations that reach beyond earth. Here still are the count- 
less petty annoyances that chafe the soul. Here still are 
the deeper sorrows that neither the lofty nor the lowly 
can escape. Here still are 

questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings; 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized. 

And with us still is the problem of sin. How awful the 
problem and how dark, both for the individual and the 
race! It flings a black shadow over the past, it em- 
bitters the sweet waters of the present, it hangs lower- 
ingly over the future. In the ultimate analysis, the throb- 
bing heart of all the pathos and the tragedy in literature 
and in life, from David to Tennyson, from Paul to 
Browning, will be found to be sin, moral and spiritual 
dereliction. 

But on this shadowed background of earth's need, how 
brightly gleams the Christmas joy ! Read again, this very 
day, the Gospel narratives of the birth of Jesus, and see 
how a light that never was on land or sea transfigures the 
mother mild, the little Babe, the patient Joseph, the wor- 
shiping shepherds, and the poor Bethlehem manger. Count 



86 THE PRECEDING GOD 

the times the angels say to anxious hearts, " Fear not." 
Let the two great words linked with this Saviour's work 
sink into your troubled heart — peace and joy. He, the 
divine Redeemer, came to bring us into peace and joy, 
here and now, and to bring peace and joy into us, into 
the central forces of our lives. 

As a historical fact, the Advent of Christ was an 
incoming of such joy to the world as earth had never 
known. So familiar are we with the blessings which 
he brought that we seldom pause to think that they are 
the direct sequences of his birth and life and great gospel 
of salvation. What are some of the streams of human joy 
that flow from this heavenly fountain whose crystal 
waters broke forth in little Bethlehem? 

In general, it is a sublime fact, which all historical in- 
vestigation corroborates, that with the coming of Christ 
into the world came also a new and majestic invigoration 
of all that was noblest in life, and the addition of heavenly 
truths and forces never before known among men. Hos- 
pitals, asylum,s for the distressed, schools, sprang up in 
the wake of the gospel. Singing and music, which had 
sunk to low and mournful measures, rose to high, exul- 
tant strains, so that one of the most striking characteristics 
of the early Christians to the heathen world was their 
songfulness. Eusebius, the ancient church historian, 
writes of how " from the beginning " the persecuted dis- 
ciples poured out their souls in hymns of praise to Christ, 
" calling him God." Tertullian, writing about the year 
200, tells of how family life, formerly anguish-smitten, 
is now songful with gladness, between husband and wife 
" psalms and hymns resounding, as they mutually strive 
who shall best praise their God." 

New value to the individual was brought by Christ, so 
that all glorious possibilities were opened up to the hum- 



CHRISTMAS AND HUMAN JOY 87 

blest men and women and little children, and they could 
not but rejoice. A new meaning was given to love. 
Motherhood, and childhood, and home life, and friend- 
ship, and the brotherhood of humanity — all received a 
fresh and heavenly interpretation, from which flowed 
sweet and solemn joy. This great and glad transfigura- 
tion of human love came as the sequence of the new 
revelation Christ gave of God's love. No rich joy is pos- 
sible for the heart unless there be a rich and joyful con- 
ception of God. Our souls are made for God, " incurably 
religious/' as Sabatier says, and cannot be normal or 
noble or glad until they rest in faith and hope upon the 
Almighty Father. Hence the ever-present sadness and 
gloom and terror of heathen lands. Not from nature and 
not from conscience comes a knowledge of divine com- 
passion and forgiveness. 

Till God in human flesh I see 

My thoughts no comfort find ; 
The holy, just, and sacred Three 

Are terrors to my mind. 

But the birth of Jesus tells forevermore of the yearning 
of God after the children of men, reveals a Father's heart 
on the throne of eternity, interprets creation, and sus- 
taining power, and law, and providence, and even retribu- 
tion, in terms of measureless love. Here, indeed, is a 
fulness of joy which ravishes the souls of those to whom 
it comes with newness of delight. 

The Bethlehem birth tells us that the divine thought 
touches every phase of human life and holds it precious. 
The divine Son became a man, entered into human toil 
and joy and sorrow. What Christ felt and did in his 
brief earthly ministry, in his relationship to man, that we 
are sure is God's attitude to the race always, and as the 



88 THE PRECEDING GOD 

divine Son entered into human conditions for a season, 
forevermore are those conditions lifted up into all noble 
possibilities. The ever-present Christ, that glorious One 
who became a man and dwelt among us, still is present, 
still dwells where men preach and pray- — yes, and where- 
ever honest work is done and true hearts follow duty's 
star or bravely meet a thicket of difficulties. 

The divine immanence — this is one truth of recent 
emphasis fitted to enkindle perpetual cheer which the 
incarnation long ago taught. " Lo, I am with you 
alway " — beneath the rapture of the assurance men have 
sung at the stake, plunged into heathen darkness and 
death, been faithful in the least and most obscure places. 
He who in any true sense comprehends the meaning of 
the birth of our Lord never thinks of it as " a past, a 
dead relation " to humanity, but as a present force, a 
dynamic power, an abundant life spreading, multiplying, 
intensifying, and giving of its gracious peace and power 
to every receptive soul in every phase of life. 

But the highest height of the joy to which humanity is 
lifted through the birth in Bethlehem the angelic message 
makes emphatic — " a Saviour, for he shall save his people 
from their sins." Solve the problem of sin, and other prob- 
lems will vanish. Man is more than body, more than 
intellect; man is conscious, willing, and usually, alas! 
self-willing, sinning spirit. The question of the centuries 
with every thoughtful soul has been to banish the hob- 
goblin of one's erring past, to energize the present with 
purity and truth, to keep the future from being a 
copy of the past. But how? Said the greatest phi- 
losopher of ancient Greece, " Perhaps God can forgive 
sin, but I do not see how." Now comes the message of 
the angels — divine pardon, strength, power for all 
through the life and death and ever-present life of the Son 



CHRISTMAS AND HUMAN JOY 89 

of Mary, the Son of God. Then comes man's best joy 
and exhilaration. Out from the prison-house of remorse 
and evil habit and weakened will, he is led to fair fields 
and blue skies and singing birds, but the brightness and 
song within his heart are greater far than any glory 
without. Well might a famous and once savage Indian 
chieftain say, in describing the rapturous gladness that 
filled his heart after accepting Christ's salvation : " On 
that day the world seemed all new and fresh to me. It 
seemed like a new creation. I looked around, and the 
trees and fields were so green, the lake was so blue, the 
sunshine so bright, the sky so glad! Oh, that was a 
handsome day on which God for Christ's sake forgave 
my sins ! " 

Well might the great scientist who discovered chloro- 
form reply as he did to one who inquired, " What was 
your greatest discovery, Sir James?" He responded, 
" That I am a sinner, and that Jesus Christ is my 
Saviour." 

Well may the poet write of the dimming of the soul's 
vision to all beauty by sin, and of the unveiling of all 
forms of delight to him who knows Christ's peace: 

If sin be in the heart 
The fairest sky is foul, and sad the summer weather, 
The eye no longer sees the lambs at play together, 
The dull ear cannot hear the birds that sing so sweetly, 
And all the joy of God's good earth is gone completely, 

If sin be in the heart. 

If peace be in the heart 
The wildest winter storm is full of beauty, 
The midnight lightning flash but shows the path of duty, 
Each living creature tells some new and joyous story, 
The very trees and stones all cast a ray of glory, 

If peace be in thy heart 



90 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Well may that heart which, by true, adoring faith, has 
kid hold upon the strong Son of God, rejoice on Christ- 
mas Day and on all the days. Let us kindle anew, then, 
the fires of love and faith and hope in our hearts. Rather 
let us, in fresh and humble consecration, bring our hearts 
to the divine Lover of the soul, and he will rekindle the 
fires. True, we have not much to bring him. We are 
not wise men, as were they who of old from the East fol- 
lowed the star and presented rich offerings to the Saviour. 
All we have to give him, some of us may think, is frank- 
incense, the sweet-bitter tribute of repentant faith. But 
he will gladly receive whatever comes from sincere hearts, 
and will plant the flower of peace in our troubled lives, 
will put songs on our lips, will give contentment and 
courage and glad exhilaration. 

Let us carry the Bethlehem joy to others. Heaven give 
the true Christmas spirit, and then shall we give of it to 
the waiting world. So the Christmas anniversary tells 
each man and woman and little child of redemption from 
sin, of hope for the future, of a joy beyond all joy, be- 
cause of the measureless love and wisdom of Almighty 
God. It tells us to love and forgive, to trust and be calm, 
to see the golden thread of God's purpose in all the warp 
and woof of life, to be quite sure that this is God's world, 
to face each day with steady courage, to open the heart 
to all high and beautiful thoughts, and so to perpetuate 
within our souls the heavenly joy that throbbed in all the 
incidents of the Saviour's birth. 



IX 
GREATNESS OUT OF GENTLENESS 

" Thy gentleness hath made me great." — 2 Samuel 22 : 36. 

THESE words linger long in the memory, like a strain 
of music, sublime yet subtle ; like a picture, precious 
yet perplexing. Striking paradoxes are here: Greatness 
springing from gentleness, a warrior praising that which 
is most peaceable, the King of kings using the humblest 
spiritual force. So remarkable are the words and their 
setting that we find them twice recorded in the Bible, 
here and in the Eighteenth Psalm. It is David's autobi- 
ography. The kingly poet recites the record of his life, 
more romantic than any romance, more dramatic than 
any drama. Through it all runs the shining thread of 
divine deliverances. David tells of the august, high- 
sounding forces in his career — storm, fire, earthquake, 
war — but reaches the climax when he exclaims, " Thy 
gentleness hath made me great ! " We cannot unveil all 
the rich suggestiveness of the text, any more than we 
can describe the blush of the rose or imprison the perfume 
of the violet. Let us consider the gentleness of God 
with David. 

What do we mean, in general, by gentleness ? The word 
has no exact equivalent or synonym. Etymologically it 
refers to noble, honorable birth. Shakespeare often uses 
it in this sense, speaking of men of " gentle blood." 
Hence, gentleness refers to that which is refined, con- 
siderate, gracious, as distinguished from the rude and 

91 



92 THE PRECEDING GOD 

fierce and harsh. We speak of a hand with the subtle 
power of gentle touch, of a voice soft, gentle, and low, 
of a soul gentle because strong and broad and sympa- 
thetic. To understand the heart of gentleness, we must 
study the heart of Christ as revealed in the Gospels. St. 
Paul begins an ardent appeal to the Corinthians by say- 
ing, " I beseech you by the mildness and gentleness of 
Christ." The apostle himself in his life and words helps 
us to an understanding of the word, for, though like a 
great ball of fire in his impetuous courage and enthusi- 
asm, though a seer and philosopher in the majestic sweep 
of his thoughts, he was one of the gentlest of souls. Hear 
him tell of his ministry among the Thessalonians : " We 
were gentle among you, even as a nurse cherisheth her 
children; so, being affectionately desirous of you, we 
were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel 
of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were 
dear unto us. . . Ye know how we dealt with each one of 
you, as a father with his ow w n children." 

But the gentleness of God with David has a wonderful 
meaning in the Hebrew word used. That word means 
in the original meekness, condescension, humbleness, or, 
more exactly, a stooping down, a bending low. How 
wonderful, how seemingly impossible, the humbleness 
of God ! The mighty oak bending to kiss the violet at its 
feet, the great thinker coming down in compassionate 
speech to the level of the half-witted child, the most high 
and holy Jehovah stooping in pity and love to lift up 
David. Out of the dark gulf of a seeming impossibility 
shines the glory of life's one great reality — the stoop of 
divine condescension and grace. The gentleness of God 
in bending down to bless and uplift David is seen in every 
stage of the inspired poet's career. 

Let us notice several aspects of it, 



GREATNESS OUT OF GENTLENESS 93 

The gentleness of God was seen in the choice of David 
for his great work. You remember the coming of the 
great prophet Samuel to Bethlehem with his horn of 
anointing oil to call the future king. Man after man is 
brought before him, of the sons of Jesse, but God will not 
suffer him to anoint any of the tall, strong, handsome 
ones. Not until the youngest, the smallest in stature, the 
shepherd lad, David, comes forth, is the prophet allowed 
to choose the future king. In David's deliverances from 
his enemies we see the condescension and love of God. 
Goliath's sword, and Saul's javelin, and the hired murder- 
ers, and all the thickening troubles could not destroy or 
hurt him, because God's gentleness was enveloping him 
and keeping him. Especially in the treatment of David's 
sin shines forth the gentleness of God. How horrible was 
that many-sided sin, with its deceit, and lust, and murder ! 
We must not, however, judge it by the ethical standards 
of today; it is bad enough even on the dark background 
of those times. See the gentleness of God in that David 
was punished, and yet not overpunished. God treated his 
sin as something to be ever loathed and hated, but bent 
over the weeping sinner, as one to be ever forgiven and 
loved. So above, in the pathway of the penitent man, 
mercy and truth met together; righteousness and peace 
kissed each other. 

Ah ! in the gentleness of God with David, in this bend- 
ing low of the Eternal Soul, we have a great prophecy 
of that One who, being in the form of God, stooped to 
the form of a servant, and humbled himself, and became 
obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. When 
did the incarnation begin ? In the literal sense, with the 
beginning of our Christian era, with the birth of the Babe 
at Bethlehem. In a high spiritual sense, from the begin- 
ning of human history God has been pouring himself into 



94 THE PRECEDING GOD 

men's souls and bodies. Well has the incarnation been 
called " the always intended culmination of the entrance 
of God into human history. ,, 

Let us see now how David's greatness sprang from 
God's gentleness. In studying the development of any 
life, we must consider both the external forces that 
touched and transformed it, and the inner spirit of the 
soul responding to the outside influences. David's soul 
was one quickly responsive to the gracious influences of 
God. Doubtless other lads had been called of God to 
great enterprises in David's time, but none was so respon- 
sive to divine condescension. To the touch of a great 
musician, one instrument will give forth only harsh dis- 
cord, while another will interpret the deepest thought of 
the artist with its rich melody. So we can see in the 
Scripture narrative how, after God had stooped to call 
David to future greatness through the prophet, his life 
broadened and deepened. The old world of humble 
duties with the sheep becomes a new world to his soul. A 
new vision of God, a new sense of the overbrooding, 
spiritual world, a new understanding of the essential 
truth beneath the shadows and circumstances of life — 
these come to David. This spiritual sense, this faith in 
God, must have grown greatly as he beheld the gentleness 
of God preserving him amidst all the strange dangers of 
his strange career. Robert Browning has suggested this 
growth of David in real greatness in his poem " Saul." 
David, with his harp and song, strives to quell the 
agony and madness of King Saul's brain. He plays the 
tune the quails love, then the song of the reapers, then 
the hymn for the dead, then the glad chant of the wed- 
ding. But no power to soothe or bless has the singer 
until, at last, a vision of divine grace rises before him, 
and far down the ages he beholds God's Son, and cries: 



GREATNESS OUT OF GENTLENESS 95 

'Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for ! my flesh that I seek 
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 
A face like my face that receives thee ; a man like to me 
Thou shalt love, and be loved by, forever; a hand like this hand 
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ 
stand ! 

As the converging forces of God's providence lead 
David upward to the throne, we can mark his growth in 
spiritual qualities, prudence, courage, and breadth of 
vision. But most of all do we see the source of David's 
greatness in God's treatment of David's great sin, in 
connection with Bathsheba. The English prayer-book 
translates the " gentleness " of our text " loving correc- 
tion," and this well describes the words of Nathan to 
David revealing to him first the awfulness of his sin, and 
then opening a door of hope through the mercy of God. 
From this experience David goes on to his real greatness". 
What was the greatness ? Not that he was a brave war- 
rior, a wise king, a true poet. Many others have been as 
brave, as kingly, as full of the poet's rapture as he, and 
the swift years have blotted out their names and influ- 
ence. David's greatness is in the fact that he was great 
in his knowledge of God, rich in his spiritual life, mighty 
in his communion with the merciful Father in heaven. 
God's gentleness led him to this comprehension of the 
divine pity and grace, and the Eternal Love enthroned in 
David's heart poured itself forth in the rich, rapturous 
music of David's psalms. Men, ever seeking after God, 
are ever finding in David's words rich and comforting 
answers to their quest. Here, here is the unique great- 
ness of David. He sat at the feet of God and heard his 
message to his broken heart ; and so men are ever sitting 
at his feet and listening to his message. 

Some years ago a heathen was translating for a mis- 



96 THE PRECEDING GOD 

sionary a little book on the way of salvation, and it is said 
that when he came to that part where it was told that 
Christ's disciples are allowed to call God Father, he was 
filled with greatest wonder. Could it be true? Could it 
be that the awful Being whom he had thought of as hav- 
ing a thousand hands, and in every hand a knife dripping 
with human/ blood, was indeed a loving parent? Filled 
with delight, he cried, " Let me write, they will be per- 
mitted to kiss the feet of God." Somehow so is our 
ecstatic wonder as we meditate on the greatness of 
David's revelation of God through God's gentleness with 
David. 

Whatever greatness we have is due to God's gentle- 
ness. 

Whatever it may be, it consists not in material, external 
things, but in the spiritual and the inward wealth. In 
your quick and broad thought, in high ethical purposes, 
in apprehension of the spiritual forces of life, in courage, 
patience, meekness, above all, in love for God and man — 
in these may be found your greatness, and these all come 
to us from the gentleness of God. More than that, all 
the love and tenderness of mother, wife, sister, husband, 
friend, come to us only as the reflections of the great 
sun of divine love. Our opportunities are from God's 
condescension, and so are our escapes from perils to 
body and soul. Looking back, how plainly we see that 
a force not our own directed us in some great crisis, 
how a small event was made the turning-point in our 
careers, just as a pebble will turn the path of a little 
stream either to go on in triumph to the bosom of the 
mighty river, or to be lost in the hot embrace of the 
sandy desert. F. W. Robertson had planned to enter 
the British army, but the barking of a dog one night 
started a most curious train of circumstances which 



GREATNESS OUT OF GENTLENESS 97 

ended in his entering the ministry and becoming one of 
the most remarkable preachers of modern times. 

Especially do we see how God's gentleness with our 
sins has given us whatever greatness we may possess. 
Two things we thank him for as we look back, that he 
did not let them go unpunished, and that afterwards he 
revealed his pardoning grace, and held before our tear- 
ful vision the hope of high achievement still. You re- 
member Nathan's words to David, piercing his heart and 
convicting him of dreadful sin, " Thou art the man " ; 
but remember, also, Nathan's words immediately after, as 
he saw the penitent's tears, " The Lord also hath put 
away thy sin." So the Saviour told Peter that he would 
fall, but immediately after told him that he would rise 
again and a great work be committed to him. So has 
God dealt with us, and so have we come to praise him 
for his dealings, and to see that all we are is from the 
stoop of his loving correction. The character of an 
eminent English lord was summed up a few years ago 
at a London club by a well-known writer, who, on the 
nobleman's leaving somewhat early, remarked to a friend, 
" I have many friends who would be kind to me in dis- 
tress, but only one who would be equally kind to me in 
disgrace, and he has just left the room." Seldom, indeed, 
is such a friend found, and when found evermore must 
we love and serve him. So the gentleness of God 
subdues, inspires, finds, saves us. Then is our love and 
devotion forever God's, and God becomes supreme in 
the heart. That is the highest height of human great- 
ness. 

And what follows from all this? Let us be gentle. 
To be a Christian means more than to receive the divine 
grace and tenderness. Every true Christian passes from 
the stage of discipleship into that of apostleship ; he can- 



98 THE PRECEDING GOD 

not rest until the message he has received from God is 
given forth to others. If we ourselves are to be great, 
are to make others great, it must be through the magic 
hand of gentleness. Let us be gentle with our fellows— 
in the home, in business relations, and especially with 
those who seem to have wronged us. Seamen pour oil 
on the stormy waves about their vessels when all other 
ways of riding the tempest seem in vain. The wisest 
of the ancients used in statuary and paintings to portray 
Persuasion with a crown upon her head. It is very easy 
to be gentle with our own faults, and very difficult to be 
gentle with the faults of others. Well said Mr. Beecher, 
u Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which 
to bury the faults of friends." 

Let us be gentle in our work. The greatest workers 
are the ones who have the power of gentleness. The 
great artist is the one who can evoke from marble or 
from music the subtle elusive qualities of expression. 
The great thinker is he who can seize and express the 
delicate, exact phases of thought. The great soul helper 
is he whose touch is tactful and sympathetic, whose spirit 
is calm and soothing, and whose eye can ever see a 
rift in the clouds of sin and bitterness, revealing divine 
grace and hope for the most despairing soul. And let us 
evermore be praising and loving the great God, and be 
saying as a tender, yet triumphant, accompaniment to 
every experience of life, " Thy gentleness hath made me 
great." 



X 



CHRIST THE DOOR 

AN EXPOSITORY ADDRESS FOR THE MID-WEEK 

SERVICE 

" Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto 
you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me 
are thieves and robbers : but the sheep did not hear them. I 
am the door: by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and 
shall go in and out and find pleasure. ,, — John 10 : 7-9. 

OUR Saviour seems to have been partial toward the 
familiar, commonplace things of every-day life. 
Nearly all of his figures are drawn from sights observed 
by everybody. He does not change this style of speech 
in his discourse recorded in the tenth chapter of John, 
although his hearers are doubtless chiefly the scholarly 
Pharisees. The Model Teacher knew that these long- 
headed, long-bearded men would be more stirred by 
familiar illustration than by any learned, labored sen- 
tences. So he said, " I am the door." Immediately after- 
ward, Jesus refers to himself as the Shepherd. 

Let us not be surprised at the seeming mixture of 
metaphors. This is often the case where strong emotion 
and mighty truth struggle for utterance. Shakespeare 
makes the Prince of Denmark speak of " taking up arms 
against a sea of troubles." When great thoughts are 
throbbing in the soul, and the heart is at white heat, 
the lips hasten from one strong figure to another. Now, 
with the false teachers before him, and with the familiar 

99 



100 THE PRECEDING GOD 

picture in his mind of the sheepfold, the wall-enclosed 
place into which the flocks were gathered at night, Jesus 
says, " I am the door/' What associations must have 
gathered about the word " door " for our Saviour ! Fa- 
miliar with all the Old Testament, the sight of Noah's ark 
with its chosen household and its great door, closed by the 
mighty, merciful hand of God, would no doubt come be- 
fore him. (Gen. 6 : 16; 7 : 16.) Then there were the 
doors of the Temple, covered with gold by Solomon. 
Could our Lord ever forget that door of the humble home 
in Nazareth where most of his earthly life was spent? 
Laboring with Joseph the carpenter, he had doubtless 
m^ny times with saw and chisel and hammer made the 
door — so essential to human habitations. 

Now he says, " I am the door." The meaning of the 
words is as simple as it is sublime. As both the sheep 
and the shepherd must pass through the door of the fold 
in order to enter the place of safety, so only through 
Christ, as the entering-way, can men, — sheep and shep- 
herd, pupils and teachers— -enter into salvation and eternal 
security. 

When we were in Palestine we saw many little flocks 
and visited several sheepfolds. We were told that in 
that land it was the custom for the shepherd sometimes 
at night to lie down to sleep right across the entrance 
to the fold and thus to become literally the door. So our 
Saviour speaks of himself as the Door because he leads 
into refuge and protects us from danger. 

No doubt is left by our Saviour as to where he leads 
as the Door. He is the door to safety. " By me, if any 
man enter in, he shall be saved." Does any one doubt 
our need of salvation? Why, all history is but a record 
of man's sin and consequent suffering, shame, remorse, 
death. No nation has yet been found without a deep and 



CHRIST THE DOOR 10. 



* 



terrible consciousness of sin. Witness the sacrifice and 
bloody rites to put away sin that exist today among 
heathen tribes. Study the four great periods of dra- 
matic poetry and find, as the central theme of them all, 
the presence of moral evil in the walk. Listen to Soph- 
ocles, and Dante, and Shakespeare, and Browning, and 
hear, in the midst of groans and tears and all terrible 
tragedies, of sin and its awful fruitage. Listen to the 
throbbing of your own beating heart as you sit alone 
with your conscience and your God, and review the 
record of your life. 

We need salvation ; we need a place that will cut us off 
from our sinful, woful past. Now Jesus is the door 
to just that place, a door shutting out the past. He blots 
out the past. He forgives the past. He asks not con- 
cerning the past if the heart be contrite and the repentance 
sincere. He shuts the door on the past and leads us into a 
broad place of peace and power for the present, of hope 
for the future. 

This is what Paul meant when he spoke of " the 
remission of sins that are past" (Rom. 3 : 25). This is 
what David meant when joyfully he cried, " As far as 
the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our 
transgressions from us " (Ps. 103 : 12). This is the way 
our Saviour treated some of the unhappiest sinners whom 
he met. Hear him speaking to a poor, shipwrecked soul, 
despoiled of all its purity and beauty : " Hath no man 
condemned thee ? " " No man, Lord.'' " Neither do I 
condemn thee; go and sin no more " (John 8 : 11). 

Christ is the door leading to a place of large and 
delightful liberty. " He shall go in and out/' Here is a 
striking Eastern phrase, which in a vivid way brings 
before us the happy, free use of a dwelling by one who is 
entirely at home. (Compare Deut. 28 : 6; 31 : 2.) The 



102 THE PRECEDING GOD 

phrase does not mean that the saved one leaves the fold 
of God's protection, but that he enjoys the most unre- 
strained service in the world, and the fullest repose in 
the home. As Westcott says, " he claims his share in the 
inheritance of the world, secure of his home." He is 
not held fast and fixed by petty, narrow, mechanical 
rules, but has written within him a great and safe govern- 
ing principle. He is the prisoner of Jesus Christ, but 
such bondage means wings for the feet and largest liberty 
for the soul. 

Christ is the door to a place of spiritual nourishment, 
for the saved one shall " find pasture." Christ not simply 
gives life, but he preserves it, and imparts it more and 
more. He says, " I am come that they might have life, 
and that they might have it more abundantly." Salvation 
is the process of a lifetime. Entrance through the door 
into the fold is one act, but growth, nourishment, prog- 
ress in knowledge and holiness are for all the years here 
and for all eternity. Once in the fold, we find pastur- 
age in new conceptions of God, of man, of ourselves, and 
so, with an enlarging experience and a fuller enduement 
of the Holy Spirit, we move ever onward and upward in 
divine knowledge and fellowship. 

How our souls yearn after God! Robert Browning, 
in some of his ecstatic lines, endeavors to bring out this 
thirst of the soul for its Creator and Saviour : 

There's heaven above, and night by night 

I look right through its gorgeous roof ; 
No suns nor moons though e'er so bright 

Avail to stop me; splendor-proof 

I keep the broods of stars aloof; 
For I intend to get to God, 

For 'tis to God I speed so fast, 
For in God's breast, my own abode, 

Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed, 



CHRIST THE DOOR 103 

I lay my spirit down at last. 
I lie where I have always lain, 

God smiles as he has always smiled; 
Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, 

Ere stars were thundergirt, or piled 

The heavens, God thought on me his child. 

But Browning and all the other great poets and preach- 
ers and gracious, saintly spirits who have brought God 
near to us, have themselves first been brought near to 
God by Jesus the great Saviour and Teacher and Master 
of our souls. 

Christ is the only door to the place of safety, freedom, 
and nourishment. He says, " By me," " I," H All that 
ever came before me are thieves and robbers/' We 
understand " before " here to refer to place, and not to 
time. So Christ means, All that have put themselves be- 
fore me, or between me and humanity, are thieves and 
robbers. Paul spoke of various doors, but he never re- 
ferred to himself as " the door." Other great teachers 
interest us. Aristotle moves us to think; Shakespeare 
and Milton please ; but Jesus finds us, lifts us, reveals to 
us life, and our own hearts, and God. We cannot save 
ourselves. When Richard Baxter lay on his death-bed, 
some one alluded to his great labors for Christianity. 
" Ah," cried the dying man, about to enter the saints' 
Rest of which he had written, " don't talk to me about 
works. Alas ! I have dealt in them too much already." 

This door may be entered by " any man." It is not a 
golden, shining gate for the rich only. It is not a way 
for the poor only. It is not for a single class, or condi- 
tion, or nation. It is for any and for all. There is not 
a teacher nor a scholar so good as not to need admittance 
through it. Through this door have passed patriarchs, 
prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints, some of whom had 



104 THE PRECEDING GOD 

been wrecked and ruined by sin, but saved by mighty 
grace. Thank God for the little word " any." It fs 
elastic, and stretches the great world around. 

The door must be entered by us. "If any man enter 
in." A door may require only the touch of a child's 
finger to open it, but it will stay closed until the needed 
pressure is upon it. Or, the door may be opened, and yet 
action must be taken by man if he would escape the out- 
side danger. We ourselves must enter the door for our- 
selves. It is not thought, nor doctrine, nor weighing the 
difficulties, that we need, but action — action immediate, 
simple, direct. Straight to the door! Enter now! The 
Greek word for door meant originally a way through 
which one rushes, hastens. That is what we need to do. 
To Christ the door — hasten, hasten! 

And the place of safety to which the door leads is the 
porch, the antechamber to the house not made with hands, 
eternal in the heavens. John Bunyan, looking through 
Jesus our door, had a vision of this place when he wrote : 
" Just as the gates were opened to let in the men, I looked 
in after them, and behold, the city shone like the sun ; the 
streets were also paved with gold, and in them walked 
many men with crowns on their heads, and golden harps 
to sing praises withal. And after that they shut up the 
gates, which, when I had seen, I wished myself among 
them." 



PART II 



ADDRESSES 



A KNIGHT OF THE SIXTEENTH 
CENTURY * 

TENDER and strong are the words with which 
Thomas Hughes describes the return of Tom Brown, 
the man, to Rugby, the scene of school days. Late in 
the evening he stands in one of the lecture-rooms, and as 
the shadows fill the room, a swift procession of familiar 
figures from by-gone days passes before him — his com- 
rades in sports and study, his professors, and towering 
above them all, the strong, tender, serene face of the head- 
master, Thomas Arnold. Tom Brown, on bended knee, 
and with fast-flowing tears, yearns for the privilege of 
living over his schoolboy days, thanks God for the lessons 
learned then and since, and prays God to make his life 
worthy of the teachers he has had. Somehow so must be 
the feeling of the alumni of this institution, gathered 
here this evening. Mingled regret and rejoicing, tender- 
ness and thankfulness fill our hearts. Here is the same 
old chapel, above us the same lecture-rooms and society- 
halls — places of many keen mental struggles — and higher 
still the same bell whose messages were more varied to 
us than even Schiller's Bell to the German heart. Here 
some of the wise, faithful teachers at whose feet we sat 
and, alas, only the memory of some others who have gone 
before the Divine Teacher. Here the same grand old 
man — no, grand young man — at the head of the faculty, 

1 Address before the alumni of Richmond College, at the public com- 
mencement exercises of the college, Richmond, Va. 

107 



108 THE PRECEDING GOD 

only more eloquent, more beloved than ever. Here our 
same alma mater — her face somewhat worn and weary 
perhaps, with the passing* years, but all the more our 
mother, our dear mother, serene with a " light that never 
was on land or sea/' 

The speaker of the evening is painfully aware that the 
past has anticipated us in all possible themes for such an 
occasion as this. A well-known anecdotist was placed by 
the side of an eminent Chinese official at a banquet in 
San Francisco with the request that he relate his best 
stories. At the close of the banquet, the distinguished 
Chinaman turned to him and said : " Belly good lies- 
come all the way from China." This evening I invite your 
consideration of a theme coming to us from a distant land 
and somewhat distant time, " John Knox, a Knight of the 
Sixteenth Century." 

None who cross the Atlantic can forget the first sight 
of old Scotia's hills as they lift themselves out of the 
water, shaggy, solemn, bold. Yonder is the island where 
in an old castle, Robert Bruce beheld the spider whose 
perseverance kindled fresh courage in his soul. That 
long peninsula is Cantyre, immortalized by Sir Walter 
Scott in M The Heart of Midlothian." Hastening up the 
Clyde our souls are at a white heat of enthusiasm, stirred 
by the human interest, the wealth of historic, poetic, ro- 
mantic associations. For these associations Scotland is 
chiefly indebted to our Knight of the Sixteenth Century — 
the preacher, the statesman, the warrior, the flaming 
patriot, the God-filled man — John Knox. 

Consider what was going on in the world when John 
Knox was born in 1505. In praise of our own century 
we constantly take for granted that no other period in 
history has been so full of great mental and spiritual 
forces. I make bold to assert that there have been at 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT 109 

least two centuries more agitated and more marvelous 
with new life and new spiritual forces than ours. One of 
these was the sixteenth century — an age of blood and 
blessing, of darkness and light, of hoary superstition and 
iconoclastic progress, a time of the discovery of a new 
world, of a rich outburst of learning, of the utilizing of 
the mariner's compass, gunpowder, and the printing- 
press — most of all, a time when the people began to think 
for themselves, and when God's word fell into the hands 
and hearts of those who for hundreds of years had been 
kept from it by civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. Spain 
and Portugal have covered the seas with their ships, and 
a stream of gold is pouring into their coffers from India, 
Guinea, Mexico, Peru, yet in the midst of indescribable 
opulence Spain and Portugal are on the brink of ruin. 
All through Northern Europe there is an unspeakable 
weariness of the forms and falseness of the Roman 
Church, and a passionate yearning for a higher, better 
life. All this latent spiritual hunger and thirst is brought 
to sudden conspicuity by Luther's denunciation of In- 
dulgences, nailed to the gate of the Castle church in 
Wittenburg, October 31, 1517. Nowhere did Luther's 
voice awaken such a response as in England. There the 
clergy had sunk into unspeakable immoralities and abom- 
inations. Henry VII had been compelled to pass an act 
to regulate their " adultery, fornication, incest, or other 
fleshly incontinency by committing them to ward and 
prison, there to remain for such time as shall be thought 
convenient for the quality of their trespasses." (These 
are the words of the law.) During the reign of Henry 
VIII, of Edward VI, and of Bloody Mary, England is a 
great battle-ground of virtue, aspiration, growing knowl- 
edge, God's Spirit struggling with intrenched wickedness, 
ecclesiastical blindness, and the spirit of the devil. The 



110 THE PRECEDING GOD 

yoke of the Pope is thrown off, only to be laid on more 
heavily for a few years. Tyndale's New Testament is scat- 
tered broadcast among the people, and then the bishops 
gather up all the copies of it they can find and make a 
great bonfire with them in St. Paul's churchyard. Catho- 
lics burn and torture and hang and quarter Protestants, 
and Protestants quarter and hang and torture and burn 
Catholics. 

Tell me not of the good old times! Oh the bad old 
times when Smithfield was lurid with flames, when the 
streets of Paris were red with Huguenot blood, when 
John Calvin killed Servetus, when the bodies of the 
martyrs fed the flames'. In the midst of these times 
Elizabeth begins her great reign in England, and her 
cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, begins her public career in 
Scotland. Upon this stormy period, and in the stormiest 
of lands appears John Knox. Born near Haddington, 
Scotland, in 1505, the details concerning the first half of 
his life are meager. His parents were exceedingly poor. 
At sixteen he came under the influence of Dr. John 
Major at the University of Glasgow, and that influence 
changed all his life. What cheer for the faithful teacher ! 
Knox left the University without taking any degree. 
Degrees are good, but there are those who take degrees 
and never take anything else. For eighteen years Knox 
was a Roman Catholic priest, but the influence of the life 
and death of George Wishart, a popular preacher who 
was burned at the stake by Cardinal Beaton, snapped the 
ecclesiastical chains that prisoned him, and led him into 
the ranks of the Reformers. He preaches and teaches 
for more than a year with such power against Romanism 
that one of his old friends said, " Others lopped off the 
branches of papistry, but he strikes at the root to destroy 
the whole/' This was characteristic of Knox. He is 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT 111 

arrested and spends about two years in great suffering as 
a galley-slave in France. Escaped from imprisonment, he 
is for ten years an exile from Scotland. He adopts John 
Calvin's views, avoids the Book of Common Prayer, 
preaches in England and on the Continent, and shows 
himself to be the first great Puritan and Non-conformist. 
On the second of May, 1559, Knox returns to Edin- 
burgh, and the great period in his life begins. For 
twenty-five years Scotland had been the theater of the 
most desperate political and ecclesiastical struggles. 
France, England, and two great home factions were 
contending for supremacy. The Roman Church had 
descended to even deeper depths than in England. But a 
mighty spiritual movement was at work among the 
masses. Tyndale's New Testament and the works of 
Luther and Calvin were bringing light and hope to 
many weary hearts. Long time the only answer to their 
yearnings had been the prison, the gallows, the hissing 
flames. They were waiting for some man big enough, 
brave enough, Godlike enough to lead them over the ruins 
of a false church into light and liberty. Just as Knox 
reached Scotland public proclamation had been issued 
against all Reformers, four of their preachers were im- 
prisoned, and Walter Mill, a godly man, eighty-two years 
of age, was burned at the stake. About the ashes of this 
holy man gathered the people under the lead of Knox for 
the first time, who made open profession of their devotion 
to the Reformation, called upon their ministers to preach 
and administer the ordinances in public, and denied the 
right of government and prelate to interfere with their 
worship. The critical hour had struck, the battle had 
begun. On the one side the government, the arrogant 
church, untold wealth, on the other side a handful of 
obscure people and God. The Reformers resolve to set 



112 THE PRECEDING GOD 

up public worship, and Knox announces that he will 
preach on the ninth of July at St. Andrews. The Arch- 
bishop sends him this message : " In case John Knox 
presented himself at the preaching place, he should make 
him to be saluted with a dozen culverins whereof the most 
part would light upon his nose." Notice Knox's answer 
to his friends, who would have dissuaded him, and to 
the Archbishop: "As for the fear of danger that may 
come to me, let no man be solicitous, for my life is in the 
custody of Him whose glory I seek, and therefore I can- 
not so fear their boast or tyranny that I will cease from 
doing my duty." The Protestants choose him as their 
minister for St. Giles Cathedral, and from now on he 
is the moving spirit, the protagonist of the Scottish Refor- 
mation. 

His illustrious career is brought before us in three 
buildings — still standing in Edinburgh. The first is St. 
Giles Cathedral. Here was his throne. Here he preached 
sermons that changed the thought, emotion, the life of 
Scotland. He denounced Queen Mary, her life, her 
morals, her political schemes, her opposition to truth. A 
great burning torchlight he was in his preaching, whose 
light flashed all over Scotland — a political, sensational 
preacher ! 

Another of the buildings linked with his fame, Holy- 
rood Palace. Were there ever more dramatic scenes 
than those meetings of the Reformer and Mary Queen 
of Scots ? Mary's political sagacity was scarcely inferior 
to Elizabeth's, and the testimony of Froude is that Knox 
alone penetrated her traitorous designs. His interviews 
there were marked by wonderful diplomacy and courage. 
One of them was especially notable in which, unable to 
silence him, she cries, " Who are you in this common- 
wealth ? " His answer is the very essence of the demo- 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT 113 

cratic spirit: " A subject born within the same, madame, 
and, albeit I be neither earl, lord, nor baron in it, yet has 
God made me a profitable member within the same. Yea, 
madame, to me it appertains no less to forewarn of such 
things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it doth to any 
of the nobility." 

The third edifice is the old stone building on the Canon- 
gate, opposite St. Giles. Here Knox lived. Here shone 
delightful domestic virtues. No Calvinistic gloom was 
his. His love for wife and pathetic devotion to child 
were touching. In his cellar was the cask of wine. He 
was a granite mountain, but sweet flowers grew on the 
mountain. He was in power like a great ocean wave, 
but on that wave there were sunbeams. Most of all, 
here John Knox prayed. From yonder upper room 
was heard at midnight the thrice-repeated cry, " O 
God, give me Scotland or I die. ,, Well might Queen 
Mary say, " I fear the prayers of John Knox more than 
an army of twenty thousand men/* Over his dead body 
lowered to the grave, the Earl of Morton said : u Here 
lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man ; 
who hath been often threatened with dagge and dagger, 
but yet hath ended his days in peace and honour. n Yet 
John Knox did fear — and this was the root of his whole 
life — he feared God, He feared God so much that he 
feared man not at all. 

Glance at some of the fruits of Knox's career. He 
brought to powerful and practical dimensions the new 
spiritual life that had been long at work among the people. 
He banished Romanism from Scotland, and helped to 
save and purify whatever good was in Romanism in 
other places. He lifted the standard of morals in his 
country higher than it had ever been before, and gave a 
new spiritual fiber to Scotch character which has ever 



114 THE PRECEDING GOD 

marked it since. To him more than to any other man is 
it due that England and Scotland were united. Henry 
VIII and Edward VI and other kings and statesmen had 
attempted this, but John Knox alone accomplished this 
most signal triumph. He did it by making the* spiritual 
life of the Scottish people at one with one spiritual life 
of the English, and so under James I the two nations, 
for centuries plunged in fierce warfare, became one. To 
John Knox the United States owes an unspeakable debt 
of gratitude, because he plead for separation of Church 
and State, he asserted the right of the individual to wor- 
ship God in accord with the promptings of his own 
conscience. It was the spirit of John Knox that sustained 
the hearts of the Independents in England when James 
I said, " I will harrow you out of the land or worse," 
and enabled them to say: 

O King, your face we fear not; 
And for your threats we fear not ; 
And come to your liturgy we dare not. 

The spirit of John Knox animated the men who sailed 
on the Mayflower, guided the hand of the Monticello 
sage as he wrote the Declaration of Independence, in- 
flamed the soul of the peerless man, who in St. John f s 
Church in this city, sounded the keynote of the struggle 
for American liberty. Shall we not say that the noblest 
achievement of John Knox was this? He gave a new 
value and glory to the individual man. He wrote a letter 
to Queen Elizabeth, in which he taught the right of the 
humblest subject to think, to judge, to speak. To Queen 
Mary, the representative of feudalism and absolutism, 
he dared assert that the common people were of more 
value than all the lords and earls and princes in the 
kingdom. He asserted the inherent nobility of man, no 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT 115 

matter where he is found, and democracy owes him an 
incalculable debt. There could have been no Robert 
Burns but for John Knox. Touch the hand, feel the 
throbbing heart, behold the stern yet heavenly face of 
John Knox in the most immortal lines of Robert Burns : 

What though on homely fare we dine, 

Wear hoddin* gray and a* that ; 

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine — 

A man's a man for a' that, 

For a 1 that and a 1 that, 

Their tinsel show, and a' that; 

The honest man, though e'er sae poor, 

Is king o' men for a* that. 

There are three practical suggestions, lessons that come 
to us from this knight of the sixteenth century. First, we 
have here a man's noblest education — contention with 
difficulties. John Knox's life was one fierce, prolonged 
struggle against tremendous odds and obstacles. Poverty, 
failure to take his college degree, spiritual and intellectual 
doubt in the Roman Church, and at last severance from 
that Church, exile, the pain and weariness, of a galley- 
slave, years of unremitting conflict with prelates, states- 
men, imperial sovereigns — these were some of the diffi- 
culties our hero met. But it was this very school of 
conflict that made him such an alpine height in the moral 
and intellectual landscape. Mind was made penetrating, 
powerful, will changed to iron, courage became granite- 
like, his peculiar, individual gifts brought forth faith in 
the reign of righteousness and truth, and God was made 
supreme. What a lesson this is for us all! These are 
the days for making things easy. We hear of quick, easy 
methods in education. We are told of mastering German 
in six weeks, and French in four weeks, of " Logic 
for the Little Ones," of " Botany for Babes." Away with 



116 THE PRECEDING GOD 

such conceptions of culture. There can be no education 
without sweat; — sweat of body, or sweat of brain, or 
sweat of soul. The noblest factor in education is struggle 
with difficulty/ Thus come power of patient concentrat- 
ing thought, a keen penetration, breadth of vision. More 
still — a daring determination to do great things. There is 
inspiration to a man in the expectation of others that 
he will do great things; but there is also mighty inspi- 
ration in that haggard-faced difficulty, the absence of such 
expectation. Most of all, difficulties develop a man's 
peculiar powers and gifts and assign him to his right 
sphere. All hail to the ones who are confronted with the 
stern schoolmaster difficulty. The great Adam Clark was 
called " a grievous dunce " ; Walter Scott was labeled by 
a professor at Edinburgh University, " Dunce he is and 
dunce he will remain " ; Thomas Chalmers was expelled 
from the School of St. Andrews as an incorrigible dunce ; 
Wellington was very dull as a schoolboy. Think of 
Galileo tortured, Columbus in chains, Dante an exile, 
Wagner ridiculed, George Whitefield blacking the boots 
of Oxford students, William Cullen Bryant all his life con- 
tending with painful nervousness and remarkable infirm- 
ities. But it w&s just these hard struggles that educated, 
educed, made these men so illustrious. Songs out of 
the darkened cage, perfume from the bruised flower, 
flashing jewel leaping from the riven rock. Make way 
then for the discouraged, the defeated youth, the poor 
boy, the struggling soul. Sursum corda. Lift up your 
hearts, all you who are passing through the school of 
difficulty. 

Another lesson is that we have suggested here an 
educated man's noblest duty — hospitality to new ideas, 
pursuit after truth. John Knox, in his friendship to fresh 
thought, in his search after truth, was willing to leave the 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT 117 

church of his childhood, all his friends, everything that 
made life precious, was willing to brave exile, prison, and 
death. And this was a great characteristic of the Scotch 
people who followed him. There was a deep longing for 
real, vital, fresh truth. They wanted reality, truth in 
preachers, in worship, in life. Well might each one of 
those souls, longing for essential truth, have cried out : 

'Tis life, not death, for which I pant, 
'Tis life, whereof my nerves are scant, 
More life and fuller that I want. 

Now, the noblest duty of a man who thinks, is to seek 
after truth in practical life, in science, in politics, in 
philosophy, in theology. The old is good, past concep- 
tions are glorious. You say, Give me the old sun and 
stars, the old mountain, the old ocean. Yes. But remem- 
ber how men's views have changed concerning the sun 
and stars and solar system, and what was astronomical 
truth hundreds of years ago is no longer astronomical 
truth. Think of how our knowledge of the structure of 
the mountains and the nature of the ocean have changed 
with investigation. Let us remember how slow men have 
been to receive anything new. The world's wisest proph- 
ets have always been treated at first as fools and fanatics. 
When coal was first brought to London a law was enacted 
to make the use of it a capital crime. The first shipload 
of ice brought to New Orleans was driven away by an 
armed mob. Remember that truth does not lie at either 
extreme or between the extremes, but in the combination 
of the extremes. Oh, the breadth and greatness of truth, 
larger than any mind or any Christian communion, or 
any system of philosophy! It is like the massive moun- 
tains, like the great lakes, like the immeasurable ocean, 
like the blue sky, like God, And who are you who 



118 THE PRECEDING GOD 

thinkest to possess completely the ocean of truth in your 
thimble-soul ? 

Mr. Chauncey Depew is reported to have said that there 
were not four hundred men in New York who did any 
political thinking. How many of us do any real thinking 
in any domain of thought? How many are open to the 
fresh thought with which science, theology, and soci- 
ology are throbbing today? How many who say, Let in 
the light? How many who rejoice in the new light being 
brought for the illumination of God's Holy Word 
from archaeologist, ethnologist, and higher critics ? Great 
Socrates and Plato in their quest after truth put 
to shame some of us who profess to follow Him who 
promised that we should, if receptive in heart, be led 
into all truth! Michael Angelo in his extreme old age 
invented a device which represented an old man in a 
moving cart, holding an hour-glass, with the inscription, 
" Ancora imparo " — " Still I am learning." Oh that all 
the students and alumni of this College may ever be hos- 
pitable to truth, be still learning while life lasts. 

Thirdly, we have suggested a nation's noblest prod- 
uct — great souls, men and women devoted to lofty, 
spiritual forces. Scotland has never given to the world 
much material wealth. Her fields have always been sterile 
and barren, her commerce limited, her manufactories, 
until recently, few. Her territory is so small that the end 
of your little finger will hide it on the map of the world. 
But she has been the nursing mother of great souls — men 
wedded to lofty spiritual ideals, and of world-conquering 
genius : a Bruce and a Wallace, a Sir William Hamilton 
and an Adam Smith, a Walter Scott and a Robert Burns, 
a John Knox and a Thomas Chalmers and a Thomas 
Carlyle. Thus, Old Scotia, small, barren, bleak, rugged, 
through the lofty genius of her sons lords it over the uni- 



A SIXTEENTH CENTURY KNIGHT 119 

versal human heart. Shall we not take the lesson to 
ourselves in these days when we are in danger of measur- 
ing men and morals and all things by the money 
standard? Bigness is not greatness. It was said at 
the Paris Exposition that the exhibition from the United 
States was a marked success in material inventions, but 
that there was " absolutely no evidence of a high artistic 
and literary life " among us. Years ago Thomas Carlyle 
said that America simply meant roast turkey every day 
for everybody. In this old commonwealth, the mother ol 
so many illustrious souls in the past, let us always remem- 
ber that one true faithful man devoted to high thinking 
and high living is a nobler product than all the coal and 
iron of our mines, all the wheat and corn of the fields. 
The lowliest day laborer, the humblest child, is worth 
more than all the bright procession of the stars because 
that child, that man can think, can choose, can be made a 
partaker of the divine image. Oh the gift of thoughtful, 
spiritual men and women to the world! Cadmus never 
dug a mine or opened a ledger, but he introduced the 
sixteen letters into Greece and so did more for her than 
all her warriors. Athens never had a telephone or a tele- 
graph instrument, yet Athens is still girdling the world 
with electric messages. Socrates and Plato never traveled 
on a railroad train, but their great messages will never 
cease to travel among the nations. Martin Luther and 
John Knox gave to their countries no commercial meth- 
ods, but they did give to the world the right of 
private judgment. George Washington and Thomas 
Jefferson built no railroads, organized no oleomargarine 
factories, developed no mammoth business trusts, but 
they did lay the foundations of a new empire, 
and hew out the way for a mighty nation. It is 
hardly possible to exaggerate the perils confronting 



120 THE PRECEDING GOD 

our nation. The rapid increase of wealth and of 
poverty, the massing of population in a few great 
centers, the misgovernment of our cities, the abuse of the 
franchise, the millions of foreigners of the worst type 
that are being brought to our shores — who can forecast 
the outcome of it all ? Our only hope lies in the develop- 
ment of a high mental and spiritual life among rich and 
poor. Devotion to high spiritual ideals, to duty and to 
God — this will save us and only this. How great then 
is the work of all educators, how supremely important to 
recognize and to seek the divine leadership. Victor 
Hugo, describing the battle of Waterloo, makes this com- 
ment on Wellington's victory : " Was it possible that Na- 
poleon should win this battle? We answer, no. Why? 
Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Be- 
cause of God. * * * *. Napoleon had been impeached 
by the Infinite, and his fall was decreed. He vexed 
God. ,, 

What a work awaits each of us. There is an old game 
that for centuries the boys of Scotland have played. At 
night a company of them go out with lighted lanterns 
fastened at their waists but securely covered with cloaks. 
When they and their friends have reached some dark lane 
or thick forest or dangerous marsh, and there is fear of 
accident, their cloaks are thrown back, and, lo, from 
every one a light flashes forth. So, O men and brothers, 
may we be torch-bearers through all the years to come, 
sending out from mind and heart a clear, pure light. 



II 

POETRY AND LIFE x 

EDUCATION means the broadest, richest life of the 
soul. It is not simply the drawing out of what is 
within a man, but also the bringing of great life-giving, 
spiritual forces into contact with the soul. There have 
always been those who scoffed at poetry, or considered it 
as good only for the embellishment of life, or thought it 
of value only for literary people. Men forget that what- 
ever ministers to the highest beauty must minister to the 
highest and best life. Many of the great poets have been 
men of affairs, intensely practical in their comprehension 
of every-day life. 

What is the meaning or nature of poetry ? Among the 
elements usually thought to be fundamental to it are im- 
passioned feeling, lofty imagination, and the artistic use 
of language. The most philosophic, brief definition is 
found in one word — the poet is a seer. He is the one who 
beholds true and essential life, and then makes others 
see it. By aid of the divine gift of the imagination and 
the spiritual quality of his powers, he sees all of the phe- 
nomena of life in their true and lofty and eternal rela- 
tionships. In nature, history, and the individual man, 
everything is significant, everything related, everything 
working toward a divine end. Further, the poet has the 
power of putting his vision into such vivid, thrilling, 
artistic, rhythmical language that we behold with ecstatic 

1 Notes of address before the Literary Societies of Richmond College, at 
commencement exercises. 

121 



122 THE PRECEDING GOD 

hearts what he has seen. So Robert Browning sympa- 
thetically writes : 

What does it all mean, poet? Well, 
Your brains beat into rhythm. You tell 
What we felt only. 

Wordsworth, Burns, Tennyson, Shakespeare, Robert 
Browning, Dante, and Milton give thrilling messages 
concerning God and man, duty and beauty, nature and 
immortality. Milton and Tennyson are two of the poets 
to be especially studied (not merely to be glanced at hur- 
riedly) by young people. 

Milton was one of the grandest of the Puritans and 
by his intellectual weapons did as much for the cause of 
liberty as Cromwell did with his " Ironsides." Milton is 
one of the greatest leaders of humanity that the Baptist 
denomination has given to the world. He wrote one of 
the first books explaining and defending the scriptural- 
ness of the Baptist position. He believed that the Bible 
was the all-sufficient rule in matters of religious faith and 
practise, that the members of a church should be spirit- 
ually regenerated and that there should be absolute free- 
dom for every individual to worship God according to 
the dictates of his own conscience. 

We usually think of Milton as the immortal poet and 
the author of some of the most beautiful and sonorous 
prose in the English language, but he was also a great 
republican leader, fighting for religious and civil liberty 
and making possible such a republic as the American 
commonwealth. His character was of crystalline purity, 
beauty, and winsomeness. It is a mistake to think of 
him or of other great Puritan leaders as narrow, or 
melancholy in spirit. A broad sympathy for goodness 
wherever found and an unfailing optimism characterized 



POETRY AND LIFE 123 

Milton. His joyousness of soul sprang from his sublime 
faith in God. All his writings are full of the Bible, its 
great truths and its literary style. We may truly say 
that but for the Bible there would have been no " Para- 
dise Lost " and " Paradise Regained," and no Milton. 

There are two characteristics of the real poet. He sees 
into the heart of life, beholding its rich and subtle and 
spiritual meanings and suggestions. Then he expresses 
his vision in exquisite, powerful, well-nigh perfect lan- 
guage which haunts the memory. Judged by these two 
standards, Tennyson was the master singer of the last 
generation. The son of an English clergyman, Alfred 
Tennyson, while a man of the world, was deeply religious 
and struck a lofty spiritual note in all his poems. 
Although very human and possessing not a little shrewd- 
ness and fun, he was always a seeker after truth and God, 
loving the Bible, reverencing Christ, meditating pro- 
foundly on the great problems of life. 

He was indeed a most Christian poet, although it 
should be quickly added that no other poet of our times 
so struggled with modern doubts and intellectual per- 
plexities as did Tennyson. His supreme work, " In Me- 
moriam," is a record of those struggles. All life to him 
was religious, and the background of his poems was God 
and eternity. His chief themes are the natural world, the 
human soul, loving service, God's goodness, Jesus Christ, 
death, the future of the human race. In moments of 
defeat or sorrow or intellectual perplexity, Tennyson's 
lines come to the soul like a heaven-sent message bidding 
us to follow the gleams of duty and love and God's provi- 
dence, to press ever forward and upward. 

The mighty influence of poetry on life may be seen 
from the very nature of the poet as a seer, from 
the fact that the earliest literature of all nations 



124 THE PRECEDING GOD ** 

has been poetry, from the related fact that the supreme 
teachers of the supreme nations have been the poets — 
Homer and Greece, the Niebelungen Lied and Ger- 
many, Dante and Italy, Shakespeare and England— 
and from the fact that poetry gives an impulse to the 
individual life. Poetry is the literature of power, of 
inspiration, and so is to the soul what the steam-engine is 
to the vessel, what the wind is to the sails, what the fire is 
to the candle, what the sun is to the flower. The poet 
reveals everything in its noblest essence, invests the com- 
monplace with majesty and beauty, preserves the dewy 
freshness of the morning to the midday and evening of 
life. The great poets are ever full of a glad enthusiasm, 
a serene optimism. To them all service is done beneath 
the great Taskmaster's eye, and all drudgery is divine. 
Hence every high and spiritual thought or word or deed 
is a response to the poetic impulse. The wonder of the 
child at sun and moon, the patience of the mother, the 
rejection of the demagogue by the voter, the devotion 
of the patriot in bloody battle, the vigilance of the re- 
former, the rapture of the saint in meditation on heavenly 
things — these all are witnesses to the influence of poetry 
on life. 

Cultivate a taste for poetry. Those who do not care 
for it are the ones who especially need it. Business men, 
and those who have much to do with the material aspects 
of life, should particularly cultivate a taste for poetry. 
Thus will come a widening of our horizons, new circles of 
sympathy and vision, refreshment and exhilaration to the 
soul, and a glorious background to our daily struggles. 
Cultivate a fondness for some of the difficult poets, such 
as Browning. Make a few of the great poets beloved 
companions by familiarity with their lives and their writ- 
ings. Reproduce the truth and the picture in memory, in 



POETRY AND LIFE 125 

our own imagination, and in character and deeds. Fol- 
low the upward flight of the poet. The thought, the 
emotion, the aspiration of all true poetry is upward, on an 
ascending scale. Of our labors, pleasures, conceptions 
of duty, plans of life, interpretations of truth, thoughts of 
God, the poet is ever saying, " Higher, higher, higher." 
Let us hear his voice and obey his call, and translate 
poetry into life and incarnate spiritual visions in daily 
needs. 



Ill 

LINCOLN AND WASHINGTON * 

IT is a remarkable fact that the anniversaries of the birth 
of both Washington and Lincoln occur in the same 
month. It is also remarkable that these two greatest 
leaders of our nation were gifts of the South. 

As a native of the South, I count it a rich privilege 
to pay here my tribute of love and reverence to Lincoln. 
I cannot forget that he and his ancestors were natives of 
the South. Lincoln was in a peculiar sense a gift of the 
South to our nation and to the whole human race. He 
had certain characteristics that belong to the best men 
and women of that section — humor and pathos, tremen- 
dous earnestness, fondness for public life, breadth of sym- 
pathy, faith in God. Living in Virginia until manhood, 
I never heard anything but praise and admiration for the 
martyred president. The most eloquent tribute I ever 
heard paid to Lincoln was made by the late J. L. M. 
Curry, of Richmond, a member of the Confederate Con- 
gress, a colonel in the Confederate army, and in recent 
years United States ambassador to Spain. 

When one attempts to eulogize Lincoln he is at once 
bewildered, his theme is so great and many-sided. A 
whole literature has sprung up concerning Lincoln. It 
seems to me there is one word which holds all the attri- 
butes of Lincoln together — faith. He had faith in him- 
self, faith in his mission, faith in his country, faith in 

1 Address before Patriotic Societies at the First Baptist Church, Rochester, 
N. Y., February 7, 1909. 

126 



LINCOLN AND WASHINGTON 127 

God and in the final triumph of righteousness. Young 
men, emphasize this in your study of Lincoln. As presi- 
dent, as emancipator, as a man, he had faith in himself 
and in his mission and in God. 

Lincoln's father was not only poor, but he had no am- 
bition. He was a man with low aspirations. Lincoln's 
mother was of the same type. His father and mother 
were of the earth, earthy. The stepmother who came into 
the home later was the one who sowed the first seeds in 
Lincoln's heart, which later blossomed. I wish I might 
impress the picture of Lincoln in his boyhood lying 
by the fire, with no paper, no ink, no pen, trying to learn 
to write. He would take a piece of wood from the 
fire and with the charcoal trace his name. By the 
light of the same fire he read the biography of George 
Washington, and the sleeping aspirations of his heart 
awoke to life. 

Nothing is more beautiful than Lincoln's great tender- 
ness of heart. His stooping down to pick up a young 
bird that had fallen, to put it back in the nest, is a par- 
able of his whole life. He was always stooping down to 
lift up some one who had fallen. In early boyhood when 
he saw a young mulatto girl put up for auction, saw the 
men walk around her, pinch her flesh, look into her 
face, and saw in the future that girl's moral degradation, 
he said, " If the time ever comes when I can hit slavery 
I'll hit it hard." He had faith in that girl. He believed 
that truth might be carried again and again to the scaf- 
fold, yet finally be set on the throne. 

If ever there was a Christian, Lincoln was one. I used 
to hear people ask in my early days, c Was Lincoln a 
Christian ? ' A Christian is one who loves God and 
humanity. Lincoln was a follower of the loving, redeem- 
ing Christ 



128 THE PRECEDING GOD 

No other man of modern times has received such 
eulogies as Washington. An English historian has said 
that he was the greatest ruler who ever governed any 
nation. His fame is ever on the increase, especially in 
recent years when we are learning that he was very 
human and by no means an impassive, marble-like 
demigod. 

Washington was great in his physical strength, in his 
unfailing courage, in his wisdom, in the harmonious com- 
bination in his character of various forces, but he was 
chiefly great in the purity and grandeur of his moral 
and spiritual life. He was a good man, of simple heart- 
felt faith in God and in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There 
was more infidelity and scepticism in America and in 
England then than now. Those were the days of Voltaire 
and Hume and Thomas Paine. Washington seems to 
have been utterly unaffected by their writings. 

The beginnings of Washington's religious life were in 
the gracious, uplifting influences of his early home on 
the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg, Va. It 
was a home of courtesy, simplicity, and true piety. His 
father, who died when he was eleven years old, was a 
good man, and his mother was one of those rare women 
who are God's best gifts to the world. She was gentle 
and loving, but wise and strict in her discipline. Wash- 
ington never forgot how after his father's death, his 
mother gathered the children about her and conducted 
family prayers in his place. 

We have one hundred and ten rules of conduct which 
Washington as a boy copied and kept before him. One 
of them contained these significant words, " Labor to 
keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire 
called conscience." Many years later his mother, in 
reply to General Lafayette's observations concerning 



LINCOLN AND WASHINGTON 129 

Washington's greatness said, " George was always a 
good boy." 

Some of the elements of Washington's religious life 
were these: He loved the Bible and read it carefully all 
his life, and also the English prayer-book. He always 
strictly observed the Sabbath as a day of rest and wor- 
ship. He was a man of prayer and several times was 
overheard beseeching the blessing and guidance of God. 
He was a regular attendant at church services all his life. 
In youth he attended Pope's Creek Church, near Fred- 
ericksburg, Va., and later helped to build two historic 
churches in the northern part of the State, and then 
furnished a parsonage for the minister. He was made a 
vestryman and warden of these churches and afterward of 
Christ's Church, Alexandria, where his pew is still pre- 
served. While thus an officer in the Episcopal Church, he 
was on warm and friendly terms with the Presbyterian, 
Baptist, and Methodist denominations, and wrote a num- 
ber of letters to ministers of these churches, expressing 
his gratitude for their support. By a fortunate circum- 
stance we have preserved a summary of Washington's 
creed in his own words, as follows : " Being heartily 
sorry for my past sins, and earnestly desiring forgiveness 
of the same from Almighty God through the merits of 
Jesus Christ, my Saviour and Redeemer, I trust to have 
full forgiveness of all my sins and be assuredly saved, 
and at the general resurrection my soul and body rise 
with joy," The fruits of Washington's religious life we 
see in the sublime traits of his character and the colossal 
achievements with which all the world is familiar. 

His calmness and self-mastery in trying times, his self- 
sacrificing patriotism, his absolute truthfulness and un- 
stained integrity, his sublime energy and power which 
went right on against overwhelming obstacles — these 



130 THE PRECEDING GOD 

were some of the manifestations of Washington's 
religious life. We may truly say that, so far as man can 
see, there would have been no American republic but for 
George Washington, and there would have been no 
George Washington but for the Christian religion. 

English, French, and German historians, as well as 
American thinkers such as James Russell Lowell and 
Woodrow Wilson, agree that but for Washington, so far 
as we can see, there might have been no American repub- 
lic. Our nation is, humanly speaking, the outgrowth of 
his colossal personality. In the W^r of the Revolution 
again and again the whole struggle depended upon his 
iron will, undaunted courage, and unequaled military 
genius. As a statesman, he reconciled divergent elements, 
overcame the forces of anarchy and demagogism, and 
laid the foundations of the republic. The years immedi- 
ately following the War of the Revolution formed the 
critical period in American history, and but for Washing- 
ton the victories of the war might have resulted in no 
lasting blessing, no enduring republic. 

As a patriot Washington stands in the little group of 
earth's grandest spirits. He gave up everything that men 
count dear for his country. He loved the nation and all 
the people, rich and poor, high and low. 



IV 



THE RELIGIOUSNESS OF THEODORE 
ROOSEVELT » 

TODAY all over our land tributes are being paid to 
the character and work of former President Theodore 
Roosevelt. He was such a many-sided man, his achieve- 
ments were so brilliant in diverse realms of thought and 
action, that it is not easy to sum up adequately the fruits 
of his strenuous career. Remarkable contrasts and para- 
doxes were blended in his life. An invalid originally, he 
became a rugged athlete; of aristocratic birth, he was a 
lover of the plain people; the author of many books, 
he was also a man of business and of practical affairs; 
poetic and romantic in spirit, he became a scientist and 
naturalist; devoted to his own home, he was likewise an 
adventurer and explorer of distant realms; a shrewd 
politician, he was, in addition, a far-seeing statesman; 
interested in international affairs, he was above all an 
American, his soul aflame with unselfish patriotism; en- 
joying the good things of this life, he was controlled and 
guided by faith in God and in the other life. 

The spirit of boldness, of noble adventure, so promi- 
nent in his character, is well illustrated by the incident 
related by a friend* that when all of his four sons had 
enlisted in the World War, Mr. Roosevelt was a little 
depressed at first, but Mrs. Roosevelt reminded him of his 
own teachings and example, by saying, " You must not 

1 Address at Roosevelt Memorial Service at Asbury Methodist Episcopal 
Church, Rochester, N. Y., Feb. 9, 191 9. 

131 



132 THE PRECEDING GOD 

bring up your children like eagles and expect them to 
act like sparrows/' 

A striking side-light on his character was his affection- 
ate interest in the colored people. His mother was a 
member of a distinguished Southern family and, true to 
the instincts of the best Southern people, Theodore Roose- 
velt was fond of the negro race and appreciated their 
many fine qualities, especially their sturdy Americanism 
and patriotism. He took pride in the regiment of colored 
soldiers with which he was associated in the Spanish- 
American war. His trusted body-servant was a colored 
man, and it was this faithful helper who watched by him 
in his last sickness and first discovered that his spirit had 
passed away. 

One characteristic of Mr. Roosevelt should receive 
right emphasis, namely, his deep religiousness. If religion 
means reverent fear of God and humble trust in his Son 
Jesus Christ, if it means love for humanity, sympathy for 
suffering, hatred of oppression and wickedness, and sacri- 
ficial service for the human race, then religion was the 
mainspring of this heroic life. Of course this great man 
was a genius, but the more of a genius a man is, the more 
he needs personal goodness and the Spirit of God lest his 
brilliant gifts prove a tragical and destructive endowment. 
Roosevelt was a keen and successful politician, but he was 
far more. He was a statesman, a seer, a prophet, a 
passionate lover of the holy ideals of liberty and brother- 
hood and righteousness which the founders of the Ameri- 
can commonwealth cherished. 

While a progressive in his political views he was a 
conservative in his theology and in his personal religious 
faith and practise. He believed that back of all schemes 
for social betterment there must be the dynamic of a 
spiritual church, made up of individuals who have had 



RELIGIOUSNESS OF ROOSEVELT 133 

personal experience of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. 
During my recent pastorate in Brooklyn I heard through 
various trustworthy sources of Mr. Roosevelt's regular 
attendance at church, of his evident joy in the service of 
worship, of his love for children, of his calls upon the 
poor and the sick and the aged. He had delight in the 
great hymns, his favorite being " How firm a foundation, 
ye saints of the Lord." The most eloquent address I 
ever heard Mr. Roosevelt make was a good many years 
ago at the great World Conference on Foreign Missions 
at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Besides him Presi- 
dent William McKinley and other famous men were 
among the speakers that evening. Mr. Roosevelt, allud- 
ing to David Livingstone, the African explorer and mis- 
sionary, exalted the glory of sacrificial service. With im- 
pressive gesture he cried out : " Do not pity those who toil 
and sacrifice for the salvation of men and the glory of 
God. They have rich rewards here and hereafter. ,, 



V 



TWO HANDS OF APPEAL IN FOREIGN 

MISSIONS * 

THESE are the days of experiments. When a few 
brave men, thirty years ago, pitched their tents on 
this spot and said that here should rise a magnificent city, 
their action seemed a daring experiment. When, last 
spring, by the sea-coast, it was determined to hold our 
Anniversary Meetings in the distant West, far from the 
land where wise men are presumed to dwell, that deci- 
sion was regarded as an experiment. (May every other 
decision turn out as happily as this!) But tonight, 
recalling the noble traditions and nobler deeds of this 
Missionary Union, especially does it appear an extreme 
experiment, a reckless risk, to summon to this platform a 
pastor whose weapons of warfare are yet untempered by 
long experience, untried by successive struggles. There 
is a famous story which James Russell Lowell tells of his 
barber, who had a theory that there was no difference 
between a canvasback duck and a black duck ; and if you 
could only make black ducks eat celery, they would turn 
out in all essential features equal to canvasback ducks. 
But " a thousand pities on them," said the barber, " they 
won't eat celery." So, if we younger pastors had only 
the wisdom and consecration of our fathers in the work, 
we might be like them, but not yet have we their wisdom, 
their consecration. A few evenings ago, in the library 

1 Notes of address at missionary mass-meeting at the Baptist Anniver- 
saries in Minneapolis, May 27, 1887. 

134 



THE APPEAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 135 

of the president of our Home Mission Society, in the 
midst of rare old books of Baptist history, I came upon 
the report of the first meeting of this Union, and as, with 
reverent hand and stirred heart, I held the old yellow- 
leafed volume, I thought of the different methods of 
appeal for missions which have been made since 1814. 
At first, the romantic, heroic features of missions were 
largely presented. The toils and tears of the Judsons 
and the Newells and of others 

Whose names are writ 
Where stars are lit, 

were dwelt upon with thrilling power. Then came the 
opening of China and Africa and the isles of the sea, 
and this, along with the progress of commerce and 
civilization, was urged as the finger of God pointing us 
onward and outward. Then the marvelous success of 
the work seemed an argument irresistible for enlarge- 
ment. Now, systematic benevolence is the battle-cry, 
method for missions, system for success. 

All these appeals are good, but, I take it, we need to 
emphasize something deeper, something more tremendous 
still. Suppose people speak of missionaries as dreamers 
and fanatics, as the Edinburgh Review did years ago, 
and as some do now — what then? Suppose the opening 
of the ports of the world be regarded as only the means 
for enlarged commerce, and we continue to deluge Africa 
with our liquor, so that for every man made a Christian 
a thousand are made drunkards. What then? Suppose 
that popular interest in missions has dwindled and di- 
minished until it has become as small as the individual 
whom the simple cobbler of Agawam described as " The 
very gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a 
cipher, the epitome of nothing." What good will organ- 



136 THE PRECEDING GOD 

ization do? If a man is sick and his tongue coated, it 
will do little good to apply a medicine to the tongue to 
remove its coating. Back of that you must go to the 
source of the disease. Tonight I plead as the great mis- 
sionary motive a vision of the two hands of which we 
have a vivid picture in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of 
Mark. Our Saviour looked at the helpless hand of the 
swooning lad, and he beheld his own hand full of power, 
and then he healed the disease. 

We need a clear vision of the helpless hand. Be very 
sure that it is a helpless hand. From the one our Saviour 
touched warmth had gone, strength had gone, life had 
almost gone. So, today, there is in the hand of the 
heathen no power for their redemption. We do not like 
to recognize their helplessness. Colossal is our charity, 
tremendous our tolerance. " If man fell at all, he fell 
upwards," says the most brilliant preacher of our day. 
Judas was a poor, unfortunate gentleman. The soul of 
good is in things evil. Speak gently of the devil, he 
at least is very industrious. But, nevertheless, it is a 
helpless hand if Scripture teaching be true, if the Bible 
does still possess paramount and permanent authority. 
The Bible is a sad book, and why? Because it is full of 
humanity's ruin. John Henry Newman has a suggestive 
sermon, entitled " The Bible a Record of Human Sor- 
row." With the doctrine that the world is lost in sin 
agrees our clearest thinking, our deepest consciousness. 
Plato preached it; Socrates soliloquized over it; Dante 
divined it; Shakespeare stamped it on his immortal 
drama. Look at the present condition of the heathen 
world bearing testimony to this. In the land recently 
made so attractive by " The Light of Asia," there are 
today twenty millions of widows in darkness and despair. 
The country of whose mighty, masterful civilization we 



THE APPEAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 137 

hear so much extravagant eulogy, seems to students of 
history to be about to plunge to deeper depths of social 
shame. On the great continent, upon whose marvels of 
gold and silver and precious merchandise the keen eye of 
avarice is now fixed — in the Dark Continent — there are 
two hundred and ten millions of our brothers and sisters 
sitting in the region and shadow of death. Let us not 
speculate as to how these children of God lost their 
religious light. We need to behold not ideas but indi- 
viduals; not fancies, but facts; not speculation, but the 
species. Look at the heathen world as it is. See hunger, 
nakedness, brutality, despair incarnate. Behold a sky 
without a star, a night without a moon, a day without 
a sun. Beneath and in and through the deepening dark, 
the gathering gloom, see millions of our kinsmen in a 
common humanity sinking to physical and moral death. 
It was the vision of all this need in which modern mis- 
sions was nursed. Call up the names of pioneers in the 
work. Hear their prayers, their appeals. Hear them 
speak of the perishing millions ; behold them bewildered, 
agonized under the thought of humanity's helplessness. 
Let us then look at the helpless hand, the sin and suffering 
of the heathen. Then will the pulpit be aglow with zeal. 
Then will the ministry need no second probation to prove 
its earnestness. Then will our voices be as sweet and 
tender as silver trumpets, as far-reaching as heaven's 
thunders. Then shall we catch some of the enthusiasm 
of Chalmers and understand what he meant when, stand- 
ing on the old bridge at Edinburgh, he looked down upon 
the steaming caldron of human life beneath — the vile, 
the vagabond, the outcast element, and said it was the 
most beautiful prospect he ever gazed upon. 

But upon the helpless hand was laid a helping hand. 
Never seemed the hand of Jesus so strong, so gracious as 



138 THE PRECEDING GOD 

when it rested upon the hand of suffering. Never are 
we so fitted and filled for foreign missions as when we 
gaze upon that hand of help. People differ in nothing 
more than in their power of vision. One man looks at 
the primrose by the river's brim, and to him it is nothing 
more than a yellow primrose. Another man looks 
through the primrose up to the hand of God, up to the 
heart of God. One man looked at the river here and 
saw only a vast volume of water. Another looked and 
beheld power to turn wheels innumerable, power to drive 
forward colossal machinery, power to revolutionize one 
great branch of industry, power to make the empire city 
of the Northeast. So, it is possible to look at the hand 
of Christ, the blessed hand that broke the bread of life 
and then itself was broken, the hand that now is held 
before the throne in loving intercession. It is possible 
to behold it only as the hand of a good man or of a great 
ethical teacher, whereas we may, we must, we will see it 
as the hand that can and shall lift this orphaned, widowed 
world up to glory, up to God. We need a clear vision 
of the Helping Hand for the enlargement of our own 
souls. A heart without Christ has not room for a single 
individual ; a heart with Christ has room for the universe. 
The great question is not whether we live in the midst 
of Christ's mind, but whether Christ's mind lives in the 
midst of us. So, just as the gospel has been mighty in 
our redemption, in that same proportion shall we be 
mighty in the world's redemption. And a sight of the 
hand of Christ will reassure us as to the possibility, the 
certainty of the conversion of the heathen. There come 
sometimes sad, disheartening accounts of the fragile, 
fictitious nature of the work done in some of the mission 
fields. Sadly we ask, Is our struggle to any purpose? 
Can we save them? Listen to the words of the Al- 



THE APPEAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 139 

mighty Redeemer : " And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me." He is drawing all 
men. Henry Martyn said not very many years ago that 
if he could see one converted Hindoo it would be more of 
a miracle to him than the resurrection of a dead body. 
Now there are five hundred thousand native Christians in 
India. And this helping hand is behind our plans, behind 
our labors. Christ is helping, holding, guiding. Be- 
lieve it ; believe it. This conviction was the motive power 
of that starlike, Godlike young missionary, James Han- 
nington, who was recently murdered in Africa. With 
fever in his veins, and ulcers on his limbs, and death 
staring him in the face, he began each day with the 
jubilant cry, " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
whence cometh my strength." Beaten to the ground and 
dragged for miles by twenty ruffians, the bleeding mis- 
sionary sang with ecstatic voice, " Safe in the arms of 
Jesus." Let me read you an extract from a letter of 
another missionary. Old and feeble, he is telling his 
experience : " At my first answer no man stood with me, 
but all men forsook me." There is the discouraging side, 
was that all ? Nay, listen : " Notwithstanding, the Lord 
stood by me and strengthened me." There was the bright, 
the radiant side. Roll back, clouds ; come out, stars ; burst 
forth, sun. " The Lord stood by me." By the side of 
every workman stand forces invisible, forces invincible. 
The wind lends its speed to the mariner and carries him 
whither he will. The force of gravitation assists the 
laborer as he presses his spade into the ground. The 
dark earth beneath us is traversed by electric currents, 
so says my neighbor at Orange, Mr. Edison, and soon we 
may use them as obedient messengers. Right above us 
are divine influences, in us are divine impulsions, all about 
us are divine energies. Behold the helping hand ! 



140 THE PRECEDING GOD 

I plead tonight for a vision of the helpless hand and the 
helping hand. Better is it to see clearly a few things than 
to see dimly many things. Better to believe with fire 
and fervor these two than to believe weakly two hundred 
other things. " Honest doubt " may be a very good 
thing, but our Saviour never strove to awaken doubt in 
the minds of his disciples. He seems to have tried to 
make their faith intensive rather than extensive, their 
vision convergent rather than divergent. You have 
noticed how often he limited his disciples' thoughts to 
two objects. He pictured two sons of one loving father. 
He described two men entering the temple, two souls 
entering eternity, two steps in the way of salvation, two 
commands for the world's conversion, two paradises by 
which we are hemmed in, the one back of us from which 
man fell, the one in front of us to which man is being 
lifted. It is easy to sneer at narrowness, but you notice 
that the great mills here are not built where the Missis- 
sippi spreads out in wide and peaceful beauty, but where 
the water is shut in, and the stream swift, and the cur- 
rent strong, and they make thirty thousand barrels of 
flour a day. Narrowness means concentration, means in- 
tensity, means power, success, means eternal life. 
" Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which lead- 
eth unto life. ,, 

Mr. President, etymologists tell us that the word hope 
is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon root which means to 
open the eyes, to gaze. From looking, beholding, came 
radiant hope, joyous assurance. Consider the words how 
they grow. From a vision of the helpless hand and the 
helping hand will come not only fresh faith, new fervor, 
but hope, a jubilant belief that success will soon crown 
our efforts for the world's conversion. Not soon shall I 
forget a familiar, oft-described experiment in physics of 



THE APPEAL IN FOREIGN MISSIONS 141 

my college days. A great mass of iron, weighing about 
a hundred pounds, is hung from a high ceiling, and in 
front of it, by a tiny thread, is suspended a little ball of 
wool or cotton. Now the ball is swung against the iron. 
No more impression seems to be made than the steps of 
a fly upon the stone walls of the building. Again it is 
swung against the great mineral mass and still no impres- 
sion, and again, and again. But look, after repeated im- 
pacts, a little thrill seems to pass through the heavy 
weight. Still the ball smites it and it trembles and it 
shivers. Again and again it is smitten, and at last it 
moves, it moves ; under repeated strokes it moves faster 
and faster until it is sent whirling through the air. Breth- 
ren of the Missionary Union, the mass of heathenism, 
heavy as iron, black as night, cold as death, begins to 
tremble, begins to quiver. It moves, it moves, and after 
a while it shall be lifted up to God, not having spot or 
wrinkle or any such thing. 



'v 



VI 
MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS * 

OCTOBER I, I903 JANUARY 7, igi2 

ROCHESTER, more than most American cities, pos- 
sesses a delightful individuality, with certain well- 
marked characteristics. Founded by a little group of 
travelers from Maryland and Virginia, the well-known 
Southern warmth and hospitality have always had a large 
place in the life of the city. Later a company of emi- 
grants from New England made their homes in the little 
town on the banks of the Genesee, and they brought to 
the community a new intellectual alertness and business 
aggressiveness. Ever since the fine, ennobling strains of 
both Southern and New England life have been present in 
Rochester, — courtesy and culture, sweetness and light, 
heart-power plus head-power. 

Beginning my pastorate of the First Baptist Church of 
Rochester October 1, 1903, we did not come to a strange 
place, inasmuch as we had spent many summers in the 
ancestral home of Mrs. Dickinson near the city, and had 
many friends in the congregation with which we were 
uniting. 

One of our first impressions was that of the warm- 
hearted courtesy and hospitality of the city and of the 
brotherly spirit among the pastors of the various religious 
bodies. Within two months ministers of nearly all de- 

1 An address at the Centennial Celebration of the First Baptist Church, 
Rochester, N. Y., December 15, 1918. 

142 



MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS 143 

nominations, including Unitarian and the Hebrew, called 
to give words of welcome. 

Before considering some characteristics of the First 
Church, Rochester, it is well to remind ourselves of the 
inestimable spiritual worth and influence of the Christian 
church in general. Many thoughtful Christians have in 
recent months sung with more fervor than ever before 
one of our great hymns: 

Oh, where are kings and empires now 

Of old that went and came? 
But, Lord, thy church is praying yet, 

A thousand years the same. 

We mark her goodly battlements, 

And her foundations strong; 
We hear within the solemn voice 

Of her unending song. 

For not like kingdoms of the world 

Thy holy church, O God ! 
Though earthquake shocks are threatening her, 

And tempests are abroad; 

Unshaken as eternal hills, 

Immovable she stands, 
A mountain that shall fill the earth, 

A house not made by hands. 

All true Christian churches, whether they be large or 
small in numbers, rich or poor in material resources, con- 
spicuous or lowly in the world's thought, are dear to God 
and full of glorious possibilities, for " Christ also loved 
the church, and gave himself for it ; that he might sanctify 
and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not 
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it 
should be holy and without blemish." A true church, 
even the smallest and feeblest, in worldly goods, is nobler 



144 THE PRECEDING GOD 

in its possible influence than any secular or human organ- 
ization, because it is the abiding-place of the Holy Spirit 
and can claim the promise of Jesus, " Fear not, little flock, 
it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the king- 
dom." 

The church evokes and perpetuates with peculiar ten- 
derness and helpfulness the fellowships and friendships 
of human hearts. Hence John Bunyan wrote, " Chris- 
tians are like the several flowers in a garden that have 
each of them the dew of heaven, which being shaken 
with the wind, they fall at each other's roots, whereby 
they are jointly nourished, and become nourishers of 
each other." The church, likewise, calls out the heroic 
and redemptive forces in our characters and puts us in 
the midst of the life-giving stream of Christ's work. 
Thomas Arnold well said, " The true and grand idea of a 
church is a society for the purpose of making men like 
Christ, earth like heaven, the kingdom of the world 
the kingdom of Christ." 

The smallest church may, by close union with its 
Divine Head, gain and give vast and world-wide spiritual 
power and blessing. 

The First Baptist Church of Rochester, now one of 
the most influential churches of our denomination in 
America, was organized by a few faithful men and 
women in the face of many trials and discouragements in 
June, 1818, and has had a notable and blessed career 
because its founders and their successors were in vital 
fellowship with mighty spiritual forces, exalting God's 
word, proclaiming Christ's gospel, seeking the Holy 
Spirit's power, and claiming God's promises. Multi- 
tudes of souls during the past one hundred years have 
confessed Christ in its services. The many other Bap- 
tist churches in Rochester have been either children or 



MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS 145 

grandchildren of this old " Mother Church." The 
Rochester Theological Seminary and the University of 
Rochester have always had a large place in the thought 
of its members. The missionary enterprise, both in our 
own country and in foreign lands, has evoked the gen- 
erous devotion of its attendants. 

Among the " impressions " of the First Church that 
come to us now as we recall the eight years and three 
months of our work and worship there, the following 
may be mentioned : 

There was a fine commingling in the church (as there 
should be in every church) of dignity and cordiality, the 
stately edifice and the hearty congregational fellowship 
well symbolizing these qualities. A striking characteristic 
of the congregation was the unusually large number of 
eminent men — some of world-wide distinction — who 
were its loyal members. Among these were the presi- 
dents of the Rochester Theological Seminary, the Uni- 
versity of Rochester, the Western New York Institution 
for Deaf Mutes, and the Mechanics , Institute, about fifty 
professors and teachers, several distinguished ministers 
and lawyers and physicians, and a large number of the 
most prominent business men in the city. There was, 
likewise, a large company of men and women and young 
people not so well known as the ones just mentioned, 
who seemed always loyal, loving, and prayerful, and who 
were an unceasing joy and blessing to the church and 
the pastor. 

From the first to the last the famous Hubbell Class 
for Men was a great inspiration and more than ninety of 
the men from this class were received into the member- 
ship of our church. The " elect ladies " of the church 
were a mighty power in everything good, and there was 
a remarkable increase in the gifts of their Societies to 



146 THE PRECEDING GOD 

foreign and home missions. Among the other features of 
these years in the First Church the following might be 
mentioned : " The Friendship Meetings " held by the 
Young People's Society in many homes, the " Pastor's 
Class " for boys and girls on Saturday afternoons, the 
" Forward Movement " for the erection of new edifices 
for several Baptist churches in Rochester, the awakening 
of fresh interest in work among the foreigners in the 
city, and the building of places of worship for the Italians, 
the Poles, and the colored people. Through the good- 
ness of God and the noble work of the congregation dur- 
ing these eight years and three months five hundred and 
eighty new members united with the church, and there 
was a net increase of two hundred and fifty, the church 
edifice was improved by the expenditure of more than 
thirty thousand dollars, there was a great increase in all 
gifts for missionary benevolences, the enrolment of the 
entire Sunday school (including the Hubbell Class) grew 
from 1038 to 2055, and the average attendance from 
481 to 655, and the beginnings were made of a perma- 
nent endowment fund for the church. 

No words can describe the exquisite joys of Christian 
friendship, of laboring for souls, of trying to do anything, 
even most feebly, in the name of Jesus. Oh the sacred 
joy of the pastorate ! Oh the sacred mysterious gladness 
of the fellowship of Christ's redeemed on earth and in 
heaven! Here is a wonder of love and service and 
worship 

Too full for sound and foam, 
When that which drew from out the boundless deep 

Turns again home. 

The secret is in the holy, sacrificial, redeeming love 
of Jesus of which Bernard of Clairvaux sung so many 
centuries ago: 



MEMORIES AND IMPRESSIONS 147 

Jesus, the very thought of thee 

With sweetness fills my breast ; 
But sweeter far thy face to see, 

And in thy presence rest. 

Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame 

Nor can the memory find 
A sweeter sound than thy blest name, 

O Saviour of mankind. 

O hope of every contrite heart, 

O joy of all the meek! 
To those who fall, how kind thou art, 

How good to those who seek ! 

But what to those who find? Ah! this, 

Nor tongue nor pen can show, 
The love of Jesus, what it is, 

None but his loved ones know. 

Jesus, our only joy be thou, 

As thou our prize wilt be; 
Jesus, be thou our glory now, 

And through eternity. 



PART III 



TRIBUTES AND APPRECIATIONS 



REV. ALFRED E. DICKINSON, D. D. 

THE Dickinson family has for several centuries given 
to England and America many distinguished and 
useful men and women. The founder of the family is 
believed by careful students to have been Walter of 
Caen, whose name appears with those who came over to 
England from Normandy with William the Conqueror 
in 1066, and whose name also is found upon the battle- 
roll of Hastings. " According to an English record, in 
order to anglicize his name, he received a grant of land 
in the old Saxon manor of Kenson near the city of 
Leeds, Yorkshire. ,, Walter de Kenson easily was 
changed to Walter Dickenson or Dickinson. 

Henry Dickinson emigrated from London to America 
in 1654, settled in Virginia, and was the direct ancestor 
of the subject of this sketch. Among the many famous 
men bearing the name in our Colonial and Revolutionary 
period were Jonathan Dickinson, first President of 
Princeton College, and John Dickinson, member of the 
Colonial and of the Continental Congresses, President of 
Pennsylvania, and one of the greatest political writers 
of his time. 

In quite recent years two bearing the name have been 
members of the Cabinet at Washington. However, it 
may be justly said that few if any individuals of this 
family have been so widely known or so genuinely useful 
to humanity as Alfred Elijah Dickinson, who was born 
December 3, 1830, in Orange County, Virginia. His 

151 



152 THE PRECEDING GOD 

father, Ralph Dickinson, was a successful farmer and a 
quiet, devoted Christian. His mother, whose maiden 
name was Frances A. S. Quisenberry, was of a well- 
known family and a woman of great vigor of body and 
mind and of a warm, impulsive heart. While the subject 
of this sketch was an infant the family moved to Louisa 
County, where his father purchased a large plantation in 
sight of the lower Blue Ridge mountains and about two 
miles from Trevilian's Station on the Chesapeake and 
Ohio Railroad. This locality and county were always 
very dear to Alfred E. Dickinson, and throughout his 
life he revisited these scenes many timfes each year. 
The old home was full of happy children, always open 
for visitors, and permeated with a strong Christian spirit. 
The parents were members of Foster Creek (now Berea) 
Baptist Church, and here Alfred was baptized when about 
seventeen years of age, by Rev. E. G. Shipp. He felt 
an overwhelming desire to preach, and being urged to aid 
in a new and struggling church, recently organized, a few 
miles away at Forest Hill, he took his church letter to 
that body. After several months he was both licensed 
to preach and ordained there. At this time he was 
teaching a small school near his father's home. One day 
in the spring the famous and devoted Dr. Robert Ryland, 
President of Richmond College, appeared at the home, 
spent the afternoon and night there, talked with the 
young teacher about his life purposes, and, before he 
left, had made him promise to enter college. The next 
fall (1849) Alfred entered Richmond College, where he 
studied until his graduation in 1852. During his three 
vacation summers he worked as a missionary colporter in 
the Goshen Association, going on horseback from house 
to house and from church to church with Bibles and good 
books, and preaching as opportunity offered. This was a 



REV. ALFRED E. DICKINSON 153 

very helpful experience and often in later years he urged 
a similar work upon young men thinking of entering the 
ministry. It was while at Richmond College that he 
formed the acquaintance of Miss Frances E. Taylor, 
daughter of the eminent and godly Rev. Dr. James B. 
Taylor. This acquaintance a few years later ripened 
into a happy marriage. After graduating at Richmond 
College, Doctor Dickinson taught school for a session in 
Louisa County (one of his pupils became the honored 
Greek teacher, Herbert H. Harris) and preached for a 
year at the Lower and Upper Gold Mine Churches in 
the vicinity. He then studied at the University of Vir- 
ginia two sessions, where he formed many happy and 
life-long friendships. While there he was asked to be- 
come pastor of the Baptist Church at Charlottesville to 
succeed the famous John A. Broadus, who was about to 
begin a term of service as Chaplain of the University of 
Virginia. Doctor Dickinson's two years' pastorate at the 
Charlottesville Church was marked by several great 
revivals and he baptized hundreds of converts. In his 
diary of that period we have this entry for one Sunday, 
" I baptized this day four times. " After two years he 
removed to Richmond, where he had been invited to come 
as Superintendent of Baptist Colportage and Sunday 
School work of the State, which then meant all of Vir- 
ginia from the Ohio River to the ocean. For nine years 
he held this important and laborious position, and it was 
one of the most fruitful and thrilling periods of his life. 
Thousands of ministers and Sunday school missionaries 
and colporters were employed, hundreds of Sunday 
schools and churches were organized, thousands of per- 
sons were converted, and large sums of money were 
secured. The guiding, energizing human agent behind 
all this was Alfred E. Dickinson. During this period 



154 THE PRECEDING GOD 

raged the terrible Civil War, the chief theater of which 
was the State of Virginia. For four years Doctor Dick- 
inson pushed his work among the soldiers, and in one 
year raised one hundred and eighty thousand dollars for 
the distribution of Bibles and religious books and for 
other work in the Army of Northern Virginia. He 
traveled widely, toiled unceasingly, preached continually, 
made warm friendships with many famous military and 
political leaders, including Robert E. Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson, and held a number of great revival meetings 
among the soldiers. At the close of the Civil War he 
became pastor of the Leigh Street Baptist Church, then 
and now one of the largest churches in Richmond. This 
was a very happy pastorate and lasted for five years and 
was marked by several great revivals. One of these 
came as a great surprise, when apparently few were pray- 
ing for it. This revival lasted with great spiritual power 
for several months and about two hundred were baptized 
as the fruit, in part, of the meetings. Doctor Dick- 
inson afterwards rejoiced to trace this spiritual quick- 
ening to the prayers of one quiet and aged woman. While 
he was pastor of Leigh Street Church, the honored Rev. 
Dr. J. B. Jeter called on him one morning to invite him to 
join with him in the editorship and publication of the 
" Religious Herald," whose office had been burned at the 
close of the war. The paper, itself one of the oldest and 
most influential journals in the United States, had sus- 
pended publication for some time. In the fall of 1865 
the firm of Jeter & Dickinson was formed for control and 
editorship of this paper. One of the keynotes of both 
editors was peace, the healing of the wounds of the Civil 
War. Probably no man did more than Doctor Dickinson 
by pen and voice and his spirit of conciliation to bring 
together North and South in a new fellowship of Chris- 



REV. ALFRED E. DICKINSON 155 

tian love and service. He was a brilliant writer of edi- 
torial paragraphs and the success of the paper for sev- 
eral decades was largely due to the fertility of his 
resources. He traveled widely and continually, attending 
religious gatherings all over the country; he gave his 
aid to every worthy cause, helping scores of struggling 
churches and young men studying for the ministry. He 
preached more frequently than many settled pastors do. 
Several times he undertook the work of a financial agent 
for Richmond College, and the present endowment of that 
institution is in a good measure due to him. He held 
temporary pastorates in the Pine Street and Fulton 
churches, Richmond, and the First Church, Manchester, 
and in a number of country churches, and in several cases 
was the leader in the erection of new church buildings. 
It is estimated that more than fifty young men were aided 
by him in preparing for the ministry. It was his delight 
to aid pastors in evangelistic meetings, and he had re- 
markable gifts of pathos and persuasion in this work. 

Doctor Dickinson always cherished a warm and affec- 
tionate interest in the colored people, frequently preach- 
ing in their churches, counseling with their ministry, and 
trying in every way to uplift them religiously and educa- 
tionally. When, a few years after the Civil War, the 
American Baptist Home Mission Society started a theo- 
logical school for colored preachers in Richmond, he was 
one of the chief helpers. Dr. S. F. Smith, the famous 
author of " My Country, ' Tis of Thee/' came to Rich- 
mond for some days to study the field and was the guest 
while there at Doctor Dickinson's home and wrote later 
of the invaluable aid received from him. Between him 
and Dr. Charles H. Corey, the President of that school 
for many years, there was a warm and intimate friend- 
ship until death camt. 



156 THE PRECEDING GOD 

He was married to Miss Frances E. Taylor in 1857, 
to Miss M. Lou Barksdale in 1879, and to Miss Bessie 
Bagby in 1899. There were four surviving children by 
his first marriage and one by his second marriage. His 
only surviving son has been for many years a Baptist 
pastor in the North. 

Among the characteristics of Doctor Dickinson, those 
who knew him before his last sickness would always 
think of his exuberant vitality. Six feet in height, well- 
rounded in figure, his face ruddy with health, his step 
quick and elastic, his eyes sparkling with happiness and 
humor, his bodily presence arrested attention in any 
assembly, and his simple geniality, kindly wit, and unos- 
tentatious piety won friends in any household. By intu- 
ition and experience he possessed a shrewd knowledge 
of human nature which served him well in many a 
difficult situation. He was a wide and rapid reader of 
books, with a special fondness for biography. For many 
years he always kept close at hand the life of some 
religious leader into which he would dip after his morn- 
ing Scripture meditation. He was especially fond of the 
biographies of those saintly men Edward Payson and 
Robert Murray McCheyne and read and reread them 
many times. He had a deep and unspeakable love and 
reverence for the Bible, and the first hour of each day, 
following the morning meal, he gave to loving reading 
and study of it. Familiar with much of modern thought, 
the New Testament in its divine power and inspiration 
lifted itself in his thought and reverence high above all the 
dust of human controversy to the heights of heaven. 
In its revelation of Christ and God and duty and immor- 
tality it met his own sense of need. 

Doctor Dickinson had great gifts as a popular speaker 
and preacher. Humor and pathos, a rare fund of illustra- 



REV. ALFRED E. DICKINSON 157 

tions, sympathy with humanity and the individual, and a 
power of ad hominem appeal — these were some of the 
sources of his influence as a speaker. 

As an illustration of some of his bright experiences as 
a traveler and of some of his genial and effective char- 
acteristics as a speaker and a man, it will be of interest to 
introduce here Doctor Dickinson's own account in the 
Religious Herald, written several years before his death, 
of one of his visits to the North to secure funds for 
Richmond College. The " 'possum story " alluded to he 
told with inimitable humor and charm at many gather- 
ings in the North, and after the passage of about twenty 
years it is still vividly remembered by those who heard 
it from his lips. The account is as follows : 

Some twelve years ago I visited Boston in the interest of 
Baptist educational work in Virginia and the South, and obtained 
permission to deliver an address on a Sunday afternoon in 
Tremont Temple, on " The Truth About the South." The sub- 
ject was well advertised, and I had a large congregation. The 
next morning I found that my remarks were reproduced almost 
verbatim in the most widely circulated Republican paper of the 
city. I called to thank the editor of that paper for the kindness 
he had done me ; but he said : " You owe me no thanks. Your 
people at the South do not believe it, but the truth about the 
South is just what many of us up here most desire to know, and 
hence, as soon as I ascertained that that would be the subject of 
your address, I determined to print a full report of it." That 
great daily was then, and is now, the leading Republican paper in 
New England. For much of the success I had in Boston I am 
indebted to that Republican editor. The same little talk on " The 
Truth About the South" I repeated in many places, and with 
good results. 

I sought the president of the Baptist Social Union of Boston 
and asked to be permitted to speak at the meeting of that body, 
which was to be held at Tremont Temple the same day on which 
I made the request. He replied that the arrangements were all 
made, and no change could now be made in the program; but he 



158 THE PRECEDING GOD 

gave me a ticket which entitled me to a seat on the platform and 
said : " You cannot speak on this occasion. At some future time 
we may hear you, provided you make no appeal for money. The 
Social Union has very strict rules on that subject, and nothing 
is allowed looking to raising money at these monthly gatherings, 
unless the circumstances are very peculiar and very urgent." I 
took the hint and the ticket, and heard a very fine address from 
Governor Long, now a member of Mr. McKinley's cabinet, then 
Governor of the State of Massachusetts, and one from Bishop 
Brooks, now deceased, but then the great Episcopal preacher of 
New England, and one from a certain distinguished Congrega- 
tionalism whose name I cannot now recall. No one of the speak- 
ers was a Baptist, but all three of them said handsome things 
about the Baptists. Just as the last speaker closed, the president 
stepped over to me and whispered thus, " I will call on you for 
a three-minute talk, if you will not speak longer than that, and 
if you will not say anything about the object of your visit to 
Boston — not a word about money." Then he said to the audience : 
" We have heard from these distinguished brethren of other 
denominations, and here is a Baptist brother from old Virginia, 
an ex-rebel, who wishes to say a word. Shall we give him just 
three minutes — that much and no more?" I began by saying 
that I had often heard of "Free Speech Boston" and that no 
man could be gagged in Boston; but that limiting me to three 
minutes reminded me of an old colored man down in Virginia, 
who went 'possum hunting. He came back about midnight, tired 
and hungry and sleepy, but he had his 'possum. He dressed it 
and put it in a skillet, and placed it on a few hot embers, and 
said, " Now, old 'Pos, you cook here while I get a little nap." 
Then he threw himself down on his cot, and was in a moment 
sound asleep. But while he was asleep another colored brother 
came in and found the 'possum all right, and ate it. He then 
pushed the table, on which was the plate, with knife and fork and 
bones, up against the sleeper; and, that there might be no doubt 
as to who ate the 'possum, he rubbed some of the gravy upon 
the sleeper's lips, and then slipped out. After a while the sleeper 
awoke, and, before his eyes were well open, he began saying to 
himself: "This is the hungriest nigger God ever made; but I 
have a good 'possum, and it's all right now." Then, looking 
around and failing to see the skillet, he said : " How is this ? 
There was no one here but the 'possum and me, and now the 



REV. ALFRED E. DICKINSON 159 

'possum is not here." And then, seeing the plate and the bones 
lying by him, he said: H Well, I must have eaten that 'possum, 
for here's the plate and the bones and the gravy upon my lips. 
Of course I must have eaten that 'possum ; but never have I had 
a 'possum to lie so light upon my stomach, and to give me so 
little consolation as that 'possum." 

" Brethren," said I, " it's that way with me tonight. To come 
so far and to be dealt with this way gives me no consolation at 
all." From every part of the room came cries, " Tell what you 
came to Boston for " ; and the presiding officer said : " Brethren, 
you have taken the responsibility off of me. Now the brother 
can tell it, if you insist upon his doing so." They did insist, and 
I told it as well as I could, under the circumstances. 

"Now, concerning the collection" Well, there was none taken 
— none at all; but they gathered around me and took me by the 
hand and said pleasant things. A dear old brother of more than 
fourscore years said : " Meet me at my office on Devonshire 
street at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. Sharp," said he, "at 
ten." Of course, I was there on time, although a great snow- 
storm was sweeping over Boston that morning. The first thing 
the old gentleman said to me, as he came into his office and 
threw off his overcoat, was, " You have gotten me into trouble." 
And then he explained : " My wife asked me at breakfast this 
morning what it was that I was laughing about in my sleep 
last night, and I told her it was your 'possum story ; and I under- 
took to tell the story to her, but failed in the attempt, and I left 
my family laughing at the idea that I should enjoy a thing so 
much as to laugh about it in my sleep, and yet be unable to ex- 
plain it in my waking hours. I wish you to tell it over to me, 
that I may tell it to my family when I go home to dinner." 
Then, pausing a moment, he said, " Wait until I can go out and 
bring my brother and my nephew in that they may hear it too." 
In a few minutes he returned, with his brother and his nephew 
and, locking the door, he said : " We are all ready now. Let us 
have the 'possum story." Then he said : " Stop ; tell us what a 
'possum is. Is it a thing that flies or something that crawls ? " 
I answered his question, and then repeated the story, and — then 
wrote the old man's name in my book for $1,000 for Richmond 
College, and his brother's name for $250; but the nephew said: 
" Please excuse me. I think my father and uncle have paid 
enough on that 'possum for the whole family." 



160 THE PRECEDING GOD 

As a writer Doctor Dickinson not only had remarkable 
gifts as a racy paragraphist and as a reporter of religious 
assemblies and as a writer of editorials, but he also was 
the author of a number of religious and denominational 
booklets and pamphlets which have had a very wide influ- 
ence. One of these has been translated into several 
European languages. 

Doctor Dickinson was by nature warm-hearted and im- 
pulsive. This natural impulsiveness, while often a source 
of power, sometimes brought him into trying situations. 

Those who knew him longest and most intimately be- 
lieved that the two mighty forces back of his life of 
unceasing activity and world-wide helpfulness were per- 
sonal devotion to Christ and ever-growing love for hu- 
manity. He had a deep personal experience of God's 
redeeming grace in Christ, and he adored the Saviour 
as the only Refuge of the soul. From early years to the 
end of his long life he had a yearning love and sympathy 
for men and women and children, for the common people. 
He could always see in the humblest types — and especially 
in young people — great treasures of spiritual possibility. 
So, as sorrow and disappointment and death came again 
and again and as the swift years bore him on and as, at 
last, after long sickness, he came, at the age of seventy- 
six, to face the end of all things earthly, he was not 
cynical or bitter or lonely. The love and prayers of a 
great multitude of friends in heaven and on earth seemed 
to bear up his heart. The Saviour was very vivid to his 
faith and consciousness. Despite the long sickness and 
the weary body and the failing mind, it was light in the 
evening when his spirit passed away, November 20, 1906. 



II 

SAMUEL COLGATE 1 

"For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and 
of faith: and much people was added unto the Lord." — Acts 
11 : 24. 

BIOGRAPHY is one of the most fascinating depart- 
ments of literature. But it is more than interesting, 
it is of measureless instruction and inspiration. Through 
the ages veneration for heroes has been a potent factor in 
the uplifting of humanity. We are told that the late 
Professor Jowett, of Oxford, used to teach that " in 
the future ethical education will be taught largely through 
biography, by familiarizing the student with the careers 
and characters of those whose lives have illustrated the 
moral quality in a high degree." In the Bible strong 
emphasis is placed upon the witnessing power of the holy 
men and women who are alive forevermore in the joy of 
heaven and in their influence upon earth. 

The words of our text concerning Barnabas are a 
fitting summary of the character and life of the beloved 
man whom God has recently called into the true life. 
The preceding verse likewise suggests well-known char- 
acteristics of Mr. Samuel Colgate's career. " He came " 
to Antioch at the bidding of the church. So our friend, 
during all his long life, actively participated in the affairs 
of church, denomination, countless phases of missionary 
and philanthropic endeavor. When he " had seen the 

1 Memorial sermon in the North Orange Baptist Church, Orange, N. J., 
May 2, 1897. 

161 



162 THE PRECEDING GOD 

grace of God [he] was glad." Was there ever a life more 
full of serene joy, sober hope, and deep-seated tranquillity 
than the one of which we are thinking? He "exhorted 
them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto 
the Lord." How many times we have listened to his 
tender, thoughtful exhortations in the prayer-meeting, the 
Sunday school, and in the more formal services of the 
church, and the one message of all his appeals was to 
cleave unto the Lord, to live near to Christ. But the 
fundamental facts of his life are in our text, and remind 
us of the fourfold strength of which Tennyson sings : 

O good gray head, which all men knew, 

O voice, from which their omens all men drew, 

O iron nerve to true occasion true, 

O fall'n at length, that tower of strength 

Which stood four-square to all the winds that blew. 

1. Consider the fact of his goodness. " He was a good 
man." This is given as the first element of the power 
of Barnabas. How different is the point of vision of 
Holy Scripture from that of the world ! Ask the spirit of 
the world the sources of a man's power, and the answer 
will be genius, training, might of body, friends, wealth, 
learning. Goodness is usually left out or mentioned in a 
minor key. Not so is it from the standpoint of God. The 
supreme glory of the Saviour is that he plants the flower 
of goodness in men's lives, he changes character, he trans- 
mutes the common dross of human life into the gold of 
heavenly life. The power of Jesus was not in his words 
or deeds, but in himself, in the unique, divine commin- 
gling of holiness and love in his character. " In him was 
life, and the life was the light of men." So with every 
leader in righteousness and truth: back of genius or 
wealth or flaming eloquence or treasured learning, has 



SAMUEL COLGATE 163 

been the power of a holy character. It was so with 
Mr. Samuel Colgate. The first thought, and, after all our 
meditation concerning him, the last thought would be 
how good he was ! In him we see a disposition by nature 
beautiful and gentle and strong, early touched by Christ, 
and ever afterwards stedfastly withdrawn from worldly 
standards and stedfastly imitative of the Divine Ex- 
ample. His character was of remarkable symmetry, its 
sterling qualities being so intermingled and adjusted that 
contrasting elements were held together in beautiful 
equipoise. He was conservative, yet truly progressive; 
tender and pitiful, yet unerring in loyalty to principle; 
prudent and cautious, yet full of courage and holy 
aggressiveness. 

In his rare and beautiful goodness do we find that 
secret of his great influence in every walk in life. In the 
business world, where men disagreed widely as to mo- 
mentous questions, he was called in many times as the 
arbitrator, representatives of conflicting interests saying, 
" We trust Mr. Colgate fully, and we will abide by his 
decision." So everywhere men felt intuitively, This is 
a true, a good, a holy man. In our Sunday school, a few 
years ago, a teacher was explaining the character of God, 
and as she tried to make real and vivid the divine attri- 
butes a little boy said : " Oh, I know who God is like ; he 
is like Mr. Colgate." Wise little heart! Our superin- 
tendent was like God, for he loved God, he hungered and 
thirsted after righteousness, and, gazing upon the face 
of Jesus, was transformed " into the same image from 
glory to glory." 

2. Associated with his goodness, we think at once of 
his spirituality. He was " full of the Holy Ghost." In 
general, we may say that a spiritual man looks at all life 
under its eternal, its divine relationships. More specifi- 



164 THE PRECEDING G6D 

cally, he is, as it is expressed here, full of the Holy Ghost. 
In the trinity of his nature God is revealed as the great 
Spirit who touches all human spirits, and who fills with 
grace and truth those hearts yearning for his presence. 
Before Jesus ascended up on high he promised all glori- 
ous and comforting blessings through the Holy Spirit — 
peace, illumination, power, and the very life of Christ 
himself in the believer's heart. The doctrine of the Holy 
Spirit's presence and work Mr. Colgate cherished with 
peculiar adoration and love. In his prayers, in his talks 
to the church, in his inquiries about churches that sought 
his aid, he exalted the work of the Spirit. Over and over 
would he say that all is well for a church or for an indi- 
vidual if the spiritual life be fervent, but that nothing can 
be truly well and prosperous without the Spirit. How his 
noble face would beam with joy and his voice break with 
tenderness as he spoke of these great truths ! A few days 
before his death, gazing on the beauty of the springtime — 
grass, flowers, trees, birds, his pastor spoke to him of the 
mystery and comfort of the divine power in the material 
universe. " Yes," said Mr. Colgate, " but not so wonder- 
ful as the sanctifying and comforting life of the Spirit in 
the soul." Then, with tears on his face, he spoke at 
length of what a comfort the Scripture doctrine of the 
Holy Spirit had been to him, with its revelation of the 
nearness, the closeness, of the great God to human life 
and trust. In St. Paul's words we have the secret and the 
summary of the life we are considering : " The fruit of the 
Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, good- 
ness, faith, meekness, temperance." Out of Mr. Colgate's 
spirituality came his freshness of heart, his buoyancy, his 
peace. Life was good and worth the living, and each 
day brought its gladness, because all life with him was 
fed by heavenly grace. 



SAMUEL COLGATE 165 

3. The fact of faith, however, antedates the other two 
characteristics. Barnabas was a man of faith, and so 
believed in the conversion of the Gentiles at Antioch, and 
believed in Saul, and went to Tarsus to seek him out. 
Faith is the foundation ; so Peter says, " Add to your 
faith." Faith is the channel through which the divine 
grace and life flow into human life. i\s the root appropri- 
ates for the plant nourishment from the earth, so faith is 
the appropriating, formative principle in our lives. In 
early life Mr. Colgate trusted in the Saviour, and that 
trust grew with all the years. So it might have been said 
of him, as of the Thessalonians, that his was a faith that 
had grown exceedingly. He had a supreme confidence in 
God's goodness, wisdom, strength. He believed that this 
was God's world, and not the devil's, and that above all 
the mysteries of life God was reigning. Hence his hope 
and cheerfulness never flagged. He believed in Christ as 
his all-sufficient Saviour. How often in our prayer-meet- 
ings have we heard him exalt Christ as our only hope in 
life and in death. When as senior deacon he gave your 
pastor the hand of fellowship more than eleven years 
ago he said, with moving tenderness and grace, " All that 
we shall ever ask of you is to give us always the message 
you have preached today of Jesus Christ and him cruci- 
fied." Full of gentleness and sweet reasonableness, he 
could not be patient for a moment with a preacher or 
religious teacher who failed to exalt the divine and glori- 
ous sufficiency of Christ. Mr. Colgate had faith in 
humanity — in little children, young converts, students for 
the ministry, and in the future of the race. From this 
faith in God and man and Holy Scripture sprang his gen- 
erosity. Much of that liberal heart and hand we know; 
but how largely he gave God only knows. He gave from 
principle and systematically. He believed in the steward- 



166 THE PRECEDING GOD 

ship of wealth, and constantly urged that it was as much 
the duty of every Christian to give as to pray. All his 
benevolence was enveloped with a secretive modesty and 
suffused by a charming grace and willingness. 

4. The last thought suggested in our text comes by 
blessed necessity from the truths we have already con- 
sidered, the fact of wide-reaching redemptive influence: 
" Much people was added unto the Lord." Mr. Colgate 
was the founder of our Sunday school and for forty years 
its superintendent, and during the entire history of our 
church a deacon, a trustee, a leader to whom all looked 
for counsel and for courage. Consider his work in con- 
nection with the American Tract Society, the Society 
for the Suppression of Vice, the American Baptist Mis- 
sionary Union, the American Baptist Home Mission So- 
ciety, the Education Society of New York, Colgate Uni- 
versity, the Orange Orphans' Home, and in countless 
other directions, and then ponder on the far-reaching in- 
fluence for blessing upon the world of! one consecrated 
Christian life. We are told that David Hume said he 
could not doubt immortality when he thought of his 
mother. How many lives have been redeemed from sad- 
ness, doubt, sin, despair by such a character as the one 
which so long has blessed this church. God be praised 
for him ! Because of his influence evermore for us shall 
life be nobler, religion more beautiful, the Christ spirit 
more possible, the world better, heaven nearer. Our sad 
yet thankful hearts find the utterance for which they 
hunger in the lines of an American poet, changing only 
the personal pronoun: 

His heart was like a generous fire, 
Round which a hundred souls could sit 

And warm them in the unstinted blaze. 
These who held nearest place to it 



SAMUEL COLGATE 167 

Had cheer and comfort all their days ; 

Those who, perforce, were further still 

Yet felt his radiance melt their chill, 
Their darkness lightened by his rays. 

His heart was like a generous fire ! 

How changed the summer scenes, how chill, 
How coldly do the mornings break, 

Since that great heart is quenched and still, 
Which kept so many hearts awake! 

O Lord, the Light! shine thou instead, 

Quicken and trim the fires he fed, 
And make them burn for his dear sake. 



Ill 



HOWARD OSGOOD, THE MAN AND 
THE TEACHER 

WHEN Dr. Howard Osgood passed away, Novem- 
ber 27, 1911, it was difficult to realize the sad fact. 
He was so buoyant and beautiful in spirit that one seldom 
thought of him as old. Only a few days before, in a 
visit of two hours' duration with him in his home, he 
talked with all his accustomed intellectual keenness and 
delightful repartee and affectionate suggestion. Despite 
the weight of more than eighty years and increasing 
bodily infirmities, he was so penetrating in thought, so 
buoyant in faith, so hopeful in outlook upon the future, 
so firm in loyalty to the Bible and fundamental truth, so 
fervent in adoring love for Christ, so overflowing in 
spiritual power, that we cannot think of him as dead. 
That noble, generous, Christly personality cannot be 
effaced or blotted out forevermore. We think of him as 
Matthew Arnold thought of his great father: 

O strong soul, by what shore 
Tarriest thou now? For that force, 
Surely, has not been left vain ! 
Somewhere, surely, afar, 
In the sounding labor-house vast 
Of being, is practised that strength, 
Zealous, beneficent, firm ! 
Yes, in some far-shining sphere, 
Conscious or not of the past, 
Still thou performest the word 
Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live, 
Prompt, unwearied as here. 
168 



HOWARD OSGOOD 169 

Born January 4, 1831, on a famous old magnolia plan- 
tation in Plaquemine parish, Louisiana, there were un- 
usual elements of charm and picturesqueness in Dr. 
Osgood's career and personality. The chivalric courtesy 
and generous hospitality and warm impulsiveness of the 
old-time South were ever characteristic of him, although 
after his boyhood he lived in the northern part of our 
country. Educated at Harvard University, from which 
institution he received his A. B. degree, he later spent 
two years in study in Germany. His marriage in 1853 
was a union of rare and exquisite happiness. Mrs. 
Osgood was a lady of great loveliness and spiritual beauty, 
and the union was in tenderness and strength like that 
of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett. Those who 
have enjoyed the hospitality of the stately home in Liv- 
ingston Park, Rochester, can not forget its charm. Mrs. 
Osgood died in 1898, and her husband never wholly ral- 
lied from the shock of her departure. Her picture was 
ever before him, and to his intimate friends he often said 
that for him heaven meant to be with her and with the 
Saviour. 

Doctor Osgood was ordained to the Baptist ministry 
in 1856, and for two years was pastor of our church in 
Flushing, Long Island. From 1860 to 1866 he was pastor 
of the North Baptist church, New York City. But by 
natural gifts and scholarly attainments he was especially 
fitted for educational w r ork, and in 1868 he became profes- 
sor of the Old Testament and Hebrew T in Crozer Theologi- 
cal Seminary, where he remained five years. In 1873 he 
entered upon what was to be his great life-work, the pro- 
fessorship of the Old Testament and Hebrew in Rochester 
Theological Seminary. For twenty-five years he held this 
chair, exercising a great influence both in Seminary and in 
the city. In 1898 he resigned this position that he might 



170 THE PRECEDING GOD 

enjoy a season of well-earned rest and quiet and literary 
research. He wrote many articles for current religious 
journals, published a number of pamphlets on various 
lines of Biblical research, and was a member of the 
American Committee for the Revision of the Old Testa- 
ment. 

Doctor Osgood was a great teacher. He was a man 
of opulent and many-sided learning. He seemed to have 
read everything bearing upon the Bible. He was strong 
in linguistics, having an easy mastery of Hebrew, Greek, 
Latin, German, French, and other languages. Like Glad- 
stone, it was a recreation to him to translate a favorite 
English hymn into Latin or Greek. To his pastor he 
would occasionally send a note or a postal card in Greek 
or Hebrew. 

As is well known, Doctor Osgood was very con- 
servative, both as a theologian and as a student of Biblical 
questions. He had little sympathy with some of the views 
of some of the advocates of the higher criticism of the 
Old Testament. Nevertheless, he was a generous adver- 
sary in his arguments, disliked personalities, and sought 
to bring every theory to the tribunal of Christ's teach- 
ing and character. Doctor Osgood's influence as a 
teacher was great chiefly because of what he himself was. 
Young men instinctively recognized him as a man of 
power, rich in his fellowship with humanity, and rich 
in his fellowship with God. He was a many-sided 
personality tender and brave, a man of the people and 
yet princely in his bearing, with a sense of humor, yet 
quickly responsive to life's pathos and tragedy. Gener- 
ous and kind to all people in need, he could blaze forth 
in indignation against deceivers and imposters. He loved 
little children, and had an old-fashioned courtesy and 
chivalry for good women. His hospitality was great, 



HOWARD OSGOOD 171 

and many preachers and missionaries in all parts of the 
world, as they read these lines, will once more behold in 
the n mind's eye " his beautiful home and hear his words 
of hearty greeting. All the varying elements in his 
character were unified and glorified by his fervid, rever- 
ential love for Christ. He had a deep and overwhelming 
and transfiguring experience of Christ's grace. We are 
told that the poet Tennyson had builded on the top of 
his home at Farringford a little platform, where he used 
to love to sit and observe the stars and all the glory 
of the heavens on clear nights. Somehow, so Doctor 
Osgood has seemed to those who have been intimate 
with him in recent years, to be sitting on a lofty emi- 
nence of thought and faith and hope, meditating on the 
wonder of God's grace and power and wisdom. From 
that eminence, despite all the tumult of the present, his 
outlook was ever optimistic. He believed the world was 
slowly but surely growing better; he doubted not that 
clouds would break and that Christ would reign victori- 
ous. Just before he died the words were read to him, 
" Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through 
our Lord Jesus Christ," and a smile illumined his face, 
and with his last strength he waved his hand with a 
gesture of triumph. 

Rochester, N. Y., December 2, 1911. 



IV 

A TRIBUTE TO TWO LEADERS 

IN THE NORTH ORANGE CHURCH, NEW JERSEY 

IN recent days I have been called twice to Orange, New 
Jersey, to conduct the funeral of two of the officers of 
the North Baptist Church of that city. This noble church 
has been greatly blessed in the devoted men and women 
of its membership who have been and are well known to 
the general public, and who have held prominent official 
positions in our denomination. But there have been many 
others who, comparatively unknown to our general de- 
nomination, have lived beautiful lives, done generous 
things, and contributed largely to the far-reaching influ- 
ence of the North Orange Church. Among these were 
Isaac Newton Burdick and Mrs. Sarah R. Hardwick, 
both of whom united with the Orange church in the early 
part of my pastorate there, and have been cherished 
friends ever since. They were both exceedingly modest, 
and shrank from publicity, but for that very reason it is 
well now to record their names and to quicken our hearts 
by the memory of their simple, unaffected goodness. All 
visitors to London go to Westminster Abbey and gaze 
upon the memorials of England's world-famed heroes, 
but a cloister has been recently built in Aldersgate street 
of the great city where memorials will be placed to those 
who were unselfish and heroic in the home and the fac- 
tory, and in daily toil elsewhere. Happy the nation that 
cherishes the memory of the heroes and heroines of the 
172 



A TRIBUTE TO TWO LEADERS 173 

church, and the home, and the business life, as well as the 
fame of statesman and warrior. 

Mr. Burdick came from Central New York to the me- 
tropolis as a young man, and before coming to Orange 
attended the Sixteenth Street Church. For about twenty 
years he was a deacon in the Orange church, and for 
many years taught a class in the Bible school. His face, 
handsome and often illumined with a radiant smile, ex- 
pressed well his youthfulness of spirit. He loved all the 
beautiful things of nature and of life — trees, flowers, 
books, pictures, music, travel. I was with him several 
summers ago for a day or two in London, and he entered 
with exuberant delight into the wonder of the great city. 
L T p to his last illness he kept the heart of boyhood in his 
buoyancy and gladness. The words of Robert Louis 
Stevenson would interpret his attitude of lively interest in 
the world of beauty : 

The world is so full of a number of things. 
I am sure we all should be happy as kings. 

He had a fine genius for friendship, holding fast to com- 
rades of the past, and welcoming new and happy associ- 
ations. His helpfulness was manifest in his generous 
gifts to missions and education, in his faithfulness to his 
church, in his tenderness and love in the home, in his 
beautiful hospitality, and in his personal interest in the 
poor and the unhappy. Back of all his life was a deep 
religiousness, a fervent reverence for Christ, of whose 
redeeming grace he had a rich experience. Intensely 
fond of the bright sunshine, it seemed the benediction of 
God upon him when, after months of sickness, he passed 
away on the morning of December 12, just as the sun first 
flooded the earth with light. "When the morning was 
now come, Jesus stood on the shore. " 



174 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Mrs. Sarah R. Hardwick, who passed away suddenly, 
December 26, was a strong and gentle personality. She 
was born of vigorous and distinguished Puritan stock. 
Her first American ancestor was Captain Joseph Hills, 
who emigrated to New England in colonial days, became 
speaker of the Massachusetts House of Delegates, and 
named the town of Maiden. Her father was the late 
Samuel Hills, after whom the library of Newton Theo- 
logical Seminary was named. Her husband died many 
years ago, leaving her with a group of young children 
whom she trained to love Christ and the church. She pos- 
sessed strong convictions, loyalty to duty, shrewdness of 
judgment, persistency of purpose. Withal she was gra- 
cious, loving, and sweet-spirited. After her death it was 
said by one who knew her well, " She always said good 
and kind things about others." She loved to entertain, 
and many now will recall happy seasons in her hospitable 
home. She had an eager zest and happiness in all the 
good and lovely things of life, esteeming them as gifts of 
God to be enjoyed and to be shared with others. Under 
affliction she was very patient and rarely spoke of her own 
sorrows. For twenty-two years she was president of the 
Woman's Benevolent Society of the North Orange church, 
and for about fifteen years treasurer of the Women's Mis- 
sionary Society. She never missed a meeting of these 
societies when she was in Orange. It was her peculiar 
joy to minister to the poor. At her funeral, as with 
Dorcas, " the widows stood by weeping." Her religious 
experience was deep and satisfying to her soul. She had 
an inward assurance of God and of Christ and of heaven. 
The end came unexpectedly, but her last words and 
acts were expressive of her devotion to the Saviour. 
As one gazed upon the remarkable expression of peace 
which remained as an afterglow of her spirit upon 



A TRIBUTE TO TWO LEADERS 175 

her face after death, the lines of the poet Keble were 
recalled : 

No smile is like the smile of death, 

When, all good musings past, 
Rise, wafted with the parting breath, 

The sweetest thoughts the last. 

Rochester, N. Y., January 9, 1913. 






V 
DR. THOMAS O. CONANT 1 

EVER since the translation of Thomas O. Conant 
from earth to heaven, it has been in my heart to 
send to the journal he edited so long my affectionate 
tribute to his memory, but the very intimacy of a friend- 
ship makes one hesitate to put into cold type experiences 
of the soul. From the beginning of my ministry in 
Orange, New Jersey, he was in his warm friendship, his 
wise counsel, and his unceasing helpfulness almost as a 
father. For several years in Orange, New Jersey, our 
homes immediately adjoined each other, and we ex- 
changed greetings every day. Many were the seasons 
then of communion on all the deep problems of life, and, 
also, on the lighter, gentler elements that give sweetness 
and charm to human existence. In later years during his 
visits to Rochester our home was his home, and we stood 
by his side when the mortal remains of his wife, whom 
he cherished with such exquisite, chivalrous devotion 
were placed in the Mount Hope Cemetery in that city. 
Only a few days ago he said, " I am planning to cross the 
East River soon and spend a night in your home. ,, Little 
did we think that he was near the river beyond which lies 
the radiant home of the soul. Doctor Conant's editorial 
associates on the staff of The Watchman-Examiner have 
written of the outstanding characteristics of his life — his 
ripe culture, his unwearied industry, his devotion to duty, 

1 From The Watchman-Examiner of Feb. 26, 1914- 

176 



DR. THOMAS O. CONANT 177 

his loyalty to our own denomination, his reverence for 
the Bible. In addition to these, we may well remember 
some other of his gracious qualities. He had remark- 
able serenity and quietness of spirit. Few men have 
labored so incessantly throughout a long life. As was 
said of a famous Englishman, " He could toil terribly. " 
His work was keyed to the highest ideals. Much of it 
was sacrificial. He gave his best to God and humanity. 
For many years his labors were in the editorial office, a 
place of highest honor and noblest influence and service, 
but not a place, according to general opinion, helpful to 
tranquillity and sweetness of spirit. But our friend 
never seemed excited or feverish or desirous of the 
world's applause or panic-stricken by the criticism of man. 
He beautifully exemplified Matthew Arnold's lines on 
r Quiet Work " : 

Of toil unsevered from tranquillity; 
Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows 
Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose, 

Too great for haste, too high for rivalry. 

We think of his refinement and delicacy of spirit. He 
set himself squarely against the slang and coarseness 
which pass for wit and humor in many circles today. His 
conversation was on the higher levels. He was a Chris- 
tian gentleman in all that the phrase implies. 

Doctor Conant was a true nature lover. One perfect 
day in last August, gazing upon the trees and flowers 
of beautiful Oxford Street in Rochester, he said, " How 
I love all the wonderful sights and scents and sounds of 
the natural world ! " Then he added, " I have been writ- 
ing about country life and nature's wonders these many 
years, and yet I have been most of the time a dweller in 
cities/' Nature was to him a window through which 



178 THE PRECEDING GOD 

one might gaze and behold heavenly answers to human 
problems. Associated with this love for natural beauty 
and mystery was a spirit of romance and poetry that 
kept his heart young to the very end. 

No estimate of Doctor Conant's character would be 
true unless especial mention were made of his genius 
for friendship. He took delight in people, in men and 
women and children, if they were reasonably responsive 
and congenial. His near and dear friends of many years 
he clung to with an almost pathetic loyalty. The passage 
of time did not seem to cool his affection, and one could 
begin afresh with him after long separation just where 
the fellowship had been broken off months or years be- 
fore. One never had occasion to doubt his fidelity and 
dependableness. He was true. 

The chief thing about our friend who has vanished 
from our sight was his deep and tender and strong 
religious life. In his early life there came to him a 
vivid and dreadful sense of sin and sin's devastation of 
the soul. Then came the beatific vision of the glory of 
God's grace in Christ. He had a rich and mighty per- 
sonal experience of the Saviour's forgiveness. This ex- 
perience transfigured his life. He was a lover of the 
Lord Jesus and out of that fount of love flowed all the 
refreshing streams of his life's influence. He delighted 
to write of the Easter miracle, of the abolition of death 
by the Saviour, of the joy and love and knowledge and 
service of the heavenly life, and God gave him a gracious 
and wonderful entrance into that life of which he had 
so often thought and written. 

The weary child, the long play done, 
Goes slow to bed at set of sun, 
Sees mother leave, fears night begun, 
But by remembered kisses made 



DR. THOMAS O. CONANT 179 

To feel, though lonely, undismayed, 
Glides into dreamland unafraid. 

The weary man, life's long day done, 
Looks lovingly at his last sun, 
Sees all friends fade, fears night begun, 
But by remembered mercies made 
To feel, though dying, undismayed, 
Glides into glory unafraid. 



VI 

WILLIAM J. WRIGHT 1 

WHEN William Carey, the founder of modern mis- 
sions and one of the greatest of men, lay dying, he 
whispered to one of his friends, " When I am gone, say 
nothing about William Carey, but speak only of Carey's 
Saviour." This would have been the wish of our dear 
friend whose spirit has gone from us, if he could have 
given directions concerning this occasion, for he was one 
of the most modest of men and he exalted Christ as his 
All in All. This solemn occasion and this large audience, 
with representatives from so many spheres of life, remind 
us afresh of the greatness of our loss. The sense of 
bereavement is so deep with me that it would be far 
easier for me to join with you in mourning than to speak 
in any formal address. While my acquaintance with Mr. 
Wright had existed for only a little more than two years, 
I had learned to admire and to love him as one of the 
noblest, kindest, and most Christly of men. The memory 
of his character and life will abide with me as a precious 
treasure. However, such an occasion as this may well 
afford lessons of wisdom and inspiration and consolation 
to all thoughtful souls. Once more we stand face to face 
with that great mystery which men call death, but which 
the holy angels know to be only the entrance into larger, 
diviner life. As we sit here a voice is speaking to us 
through the ancient prophet, " Comfort ye, comfort ye 

1 Address at the funeral services of Mr. Wright at the Sixth Avenue 
Baptist Church, Brooklyn, N. Y., April 23, 1915. 

180 



WILLIAM J. WRIGHT 181 

my people, saith your God." And another Voice, full of 
majestic sweetness, says to us : " Let not your heart be 
troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my 
Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, 
I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for 
you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto 
you." 

What are some of the consolations that come to us at 
this time? 

There is great comfort in the fact that we have known 
such a noble, Christlike character as William J. Wright. 
Born in Northern Ireland about sixty-seven years ago, he 
possessed the sense of humor and of pathos, the winsome- 
ness and charm of the romantic, attractive people of his 
birthplace. There was a beautiful commingling of graces 
and virtues in him which gave a noble symmetry to his 
character and influence to his words. He was strong, yet 
very tender, dignified, yet easy of approach, progressive, 
yet wise and well-balanced. He loved all the beautiful 
things of this life — flowers, music, good books, travel, 
human companionship — but saw them all as prophecies 
and foregleams of the richer, more wonderful life of 
heaven. He was a remarkably generous man, giving 
quickly, lovingly, cheerfully, widely, and for the sake of 
Christ. No worthy person or enterprise ever appealed to 
him in vain. He was given to hospitality, rejoicing to 
have in his home continually guests from all sections of 
our country and other lands. The sad and the glad, the 
poor and the prosperous, the humble preacher and 
the prominent business man, the stranger and the 
well-known — all found warm welcome and bountiful 
entertainment in his home. His spirit was marked by an 
exquisite gentleness and patience. While so strong and 
forceful — a natural leader — he knew how to heal impa- 



182 THE PRECEDING GOD 

tient souls by the gracious word and how to hold his peace 
when silence seemed to be golden. 

He was a lover of the Bible and had for many years 
made constant, careful study of its great truths. He 
believed in memorizing Scripture and used to urge this 
practise upon children and young people. He loved 
hymnology and was unusually well-informed concerning 
the great hymns and hymn-writers of the Christian 
Church. 

Linked with his love for the Bible was Mr. Wright's 
prayer fulness. He rejoiced in the thought of the near- 
ness of God, the proximity of heaven to earth, and the 
possibility of lifting up the soul to the heavenly Father at 
any time and all times. Prayer was to him the constant 
attitude of the soul, of trust, love, adoration, dependence, 
and obedience towards God. His spoken prayers were 
marked by simplicity, tenderness, fervor, childlike faith. 
Mr. Wright had great sympathy with people in trouble. 
His heart went out in yearning, pitying love for the sick, 
the poor, the lonely, the erring, and he constantly visited 
the distressed, ministering to body and to soul. He 
had a deep devotion to this church of which for thirty 
years he was a member and which he served with loving 
fidelity as deacon and as trustee, and in various other 
offices. He believed in the Christian church as the 
mighty spiritual force back of all other forces for human 
betterment. The secret and source of all the beauty 
and strength of this noble man's character we know was 
in his adoring love for Jesus Christ as the " Strong Son 
of God, Immortal Love " and as his own personal Saviour. 
Christ was the joy of his joy, the life of his life, the soul 
of his soul. 

Bereaved as we are today, we thank God and take 
courage because we have known and loved such a man as 



WILLIAM J. WRIGHT 183 

William J. Wright, and Longfellow's words come to us 
afresh : 

Thus, though oft depressed and lonely, 

All my fears are laid aside, 
If I but remember only 

Such as these have lived and died. 

We have comfort today in the thought of the quietness 
of our friend's death. His departure was sudden, gentle, 
and apparently, without pain. It was like a peaceful 
falling into the sleep from which one rises in the morn- 
ing refreshed for new activities and joys. It was a trans- 
lation. Sudden death was for him, we feel sure, sudden 
entrance into the Paradise of God. 

George Frederick Watts, the great English painter, 
depicted upon the canvas a strong and gentle angel, 
arrayed in garments of shining white, as his idea of death. 
A few years ago when Watts himself was dying he said, 
in happy faith and hope, " I am so glad that I painted 
the Angel of Death in garments of gleaming white." 
Then he added, " Besides, his face is toward the sun." 
It was thus with the departure of our friend. Dying, he 
faced the sunrise, as while he had lived. 

We take great consolation at this time in the thought 
of God's wise and loving Providence. This thought Mr. 
Wright loved and occasionally, to intimate friends, he 
would speak of how God had guided him when a youth 
across the ocean to this land and wonderfully led him 
through many glad and sad experiences. Today we fall 
back in simple faith upon the fact of the Divine Sover- 
eignty and Leadership in our lives. " We know that all 
things work together for good to them that love God." 
" Of him, and through him, and to him are all things." 
For the servant of God all things, small and great, sad 
and glad, death as truly as life, are being wrought 



184 THE PRECEDING GOD 

together into blessed perfection by Infinite Love and 
Wisdom. 

Once more, we take strong comfort and inspiration 
to our hearts when we think of the blessed life of heaven 
into which we believe our dear friend has already entered 
by God's grace. On the night before his death our 
Saviour prayed for his disciples : " Father, I will that 
they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where 
I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast 
given me." As he hung upon the cross, Jesus said to 
the dying and forgiven penitent by his side, " Today thou 
shalt be with me in Paradise." So, we have strong as- 
surance that our loved ones who die in Christ enter im- 
mediately into the joy of Paradise. Oh the radiant 
wonder and the rapturous mystery of that new life! 
While we cannot know its details, we feel sure from the 
teaching of Holy Scriptures that the life of Paradise 
means larger knowledge, nobler service, deeper love, 
richer joy, ever-growing holiness, ever-advancing activ- 
ities of the spiritual life, and best of all, the presence 
and fresh blessing of the Saviour. Likewise, we think of 
the holy saints and the redeemed friends who await to 
welcome the pilgrims of Jesus as they pass from earth 
to heaven. 

TKere entertain him all the saints above, 
In solemn troops and sweet societies 
That sing and singing in their glory move. 



VII 
ISAAC EDWIN GATES 

WHEN the tidings came that Isaac E. Gates had 
passed away on February 24, 1916, a large circle 
of friends and acquaintances felt a profound sense of loss 
and loneliness. Some of them knew that one of their best 
and most helpful friends had gone. Having reached the 
ripe age of eighty-four years, death came to him gently 
and softly, and his spirit slipped away in great peace to 
the realm of light and love of which he had so long 
thought. 

Born in Connecticut, certain well-known New England 
characteristics were always manifest in Mr. Gates — sim- 
plicity of tastes, painstaking thoroughness, fondness for 
the best literature, devotion to lofty moral principles, and 
deep religiousness. Added to these there was a rare 
sweetness and gentleness of spirit, a sense of quiet humor, 
and a refinement which made him keenly sensitive to the 
rough and coarse things of life. While a stanch New En- 
glander and proud of his native State, he took a great 
interest in the South, was fond of Southern people, and 
enjoyed the biographies of Lee and Jackson. His large 
business interests in the South brought him in contact 
with many interesting individuals and causes in that sec- 
tion. It was through his generous kindness that the now 
large and flourishing First Church, Newport News, Vir- 
ginia, obtained its fine lot in its early days of struggle. 

Mr. Gates was educated at Colgate University and 
planned to give his life to the ministry, but, after a brief 

185 



186 THE PRECEDING GOD 

service in Wisconsin, he was compelled to give up the 
pastorate on account of failing health. Returning to New 
York City he became associated with his brother-in-law, 
the late Collis P. Huntington, who was beginning his 
distinguished career as builder of a great transcontinental 
railway system. Until Mr. Huntington's death, a few 
years ago, Mr. Gates was closely identified with his rail- 
ways, and his great shipbuilding company, at Newport 
News. For some years he lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, 
and was a tower of strength in the Central Church of 
that city. In 1887 he made his home in East Orange, 
New Jersey, and united with the North Orange Church, 
which hp served as trustee and as teacher of a large class 
of young women in the Bible school. One of these young 
women, now the wife of a prominent New York lawyer, 
said a few weeks ago that the members of this Bible 
class always thought of Mr. Gates as the most beautiful 
Christian character they had ever known. After living 
in East Orange about fifteen years, Mr. Gates made his 
home in New York, where he resided until his death. 

Despite his prominence as a business man and the 
heavy burdens of responsibility he carried, the most 
marked characteristic of Mr. Gates was his spirituality. 
The windows of his soul were ever open towards the 
heavenly city. He rarely missed a prayer-meeting in his 
church during his residence in East Orange, and his 
prayers and brief addresses were uplifting and comfort- 
ing. He was fond of listening to earnest preaching, he 
had a wide circle of acquaintances among ministers, and 
he loved the immortal hymns of the church. He took 
great joy and pride in the well-known hymns and poems 
written by his wife, whom he cherished with exquisite 
devotion. While enjoying all beautiful things, it was his 
matured conviction that one of the greatest needs of our 



ISAAC EDWIN GATES 187 

times is a return to greater simplicity in all our ways, to 
magnify afresh Wordsworth's " plain living and high 
thinking." His generosity was great but always modest 
and unobtrusive. He shrank from anything and every- 
thing that savored of display. He gave to churches and 
schools and various forms of missionary enterprise. He 
had a deep sympathy with struggling, suffering humanity. 
Mr. Gates thought much concerning the problems of 
death and the life beyond, and to intimate friends would 
express his views concerning these great mysteries. 
Familiar with ancient and modern arguments for the sur- 
vival of the human personality beyond the grave, he be- 
lieved that the supreme argument was in Jesus Christ — 
his character, message, and redemptive work. He adored 
the Saviour with ever-growing faith through a long 
life of mingled joy and sorrow. A few hours before his 
death, when precious promises from God's Word were 
repeated to him, this divine assurance seemed of especial 
comfort to him — " He hath said, I will never leave thee 
nor forsake thee. ,, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, 
and today, and forever/' A smile illumined his face and 
the light of eager expectation shone from his eyes. He 
was a lover of the Lord, and we are sure that the strong 
Son of God was with him. 

March, 1916. 



VIII 

GARDNER COLBY AND HAYWARD 

SMITH 1 

DEATH takes us by surprise." These words from one 
of Longfellow's poems have received fresh emphasis 
recently in the sudden translations from earth to heaven of 
Hayward Smith, of the Borough of Brooklyn, New York, 
and Gardner Colby, of East Orange, New Jersey. It 
has been my privilege to know them both intimately and 
to love them warmly. Hayward Smith in physical pro- 
portions, mental vigor, emotional warmth, kindling en- 
thusiasm, and religious devotion was an inspiring person- 
ality. Born in the Borough of Manhattan seventy years 
ago, he was by reason of his fervor and faithfulness one 
of the elect few who never grow old. He lived in Brook- 
lyn sixty-eight years and since his conversion, when about 
eighteen years of age, has been connected in one way or 
another with a multitude of good works in this great city. 
With a broad sympathy for all Christian churches, he 
was a stanch Baptist and in recent years the clerk of 
our Long Island Association. He had been actively 
interested in the Samaritan Hospital, the Baptist Home 
for the Aged, the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and 
many other noble enterprises. But next to his family, 
his chief love was for the Sixth Avenue Church, of which 
forty-five years ago he was one of the founders and which 
he served with a chivalric fidelity. Of this church at 

1 From The Watchman-Examiner, Nov. 15, 191 7. 

188 



G. COLBY AND H. SMITH 189 

the time of his death he was deacon, clerk, treasurer of 
the fellowship fund, usher, and leader of the singing in 
the Bible school and in the prayer-meeting. Nothing was 
too great and nothing was too small for him to do for 
the church he had loved so long. Back of the church 
and in it and before it he saw by faith Jesus Christ 
its Head and his adorable Saviour. No preaching ap- 
proached its true purpose, in his thought, unless it was 
tender and compelling with the redemptive love of Christ. 

He took a keen interest in little children, in the dis- 
tressed, and in those seeking the way of salvation. He 
loved the great hymns and was an inspiring leader of 
congregational singing. Now his spirit, with the multi- 
tude of the redeemed in heaven, has joined in the New 
Song. 

Gardner Colby passed away suddenly on November 4, 
four days after Mr. Smith died. So long and intimate 
had been my friendship with Gardner Colby that the pen 
falters in attempting to write even a few sentences con- 
cerning him. Fifty-three years of age, he vanished from 
our earthly vision in the prime of his usefulness. His 
name was a distinguished one for several generations. 
His father was one of the foremost citizens of New 7 
Jersey. His grandfather, Gardner Colby, of Newton 
Center, Massachusetts, was probably the most widely 
known Baptist layman in America in his time. My friend 
who has just left us exemplified well many of the traits 
of his noble ancestry. Broad culture and deep religious- 
ness were beautifully mingled in his character. He was 
a wide reader, a public-spirited citizen, and an ardent 
patriot. He loved to entertain congenial spirits in his 
hospitable home. A winsome affectionateness gave a 
rare charm to his character. He was a trustee both of 
Colgate University and of Brown University and took a 



190 THE PRECEDING GOD 

keen interest in educational problems. For about twelve 
years he had been secretary and chief examiner of the 
New Jersey Civil Service Commission. He was devoted 
to the North Orange Church, and for about twenty-nine 
years served it as deacon and in many other capacities. 
For about twenty-five years he was superintendent of the 
Sunday school of the Emmanuel mission. Despite his 
many outside and public engagements, he visited the 
poor and the sick and the perplexed, and cherished a 
warm interest in individuals. He loved the children. He 
was a faithful attendant at prayer-meetings and took part 
in them with exceeding helpfulness. He was a Christian 
man, tender and strong. Familiar with much of modern 
doubt, Christ was to him the final authority on all the 
problems of life. 

As we think of the sudden and unexpected passing of 
two such men as the ones mentioned in this brief tribute, 
life seems at first increasingly lonely and difficult. But 
we hear Jesus saying : " I am the Light of the world ; 
he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but 
shall have the light of life." In humble faith we make 
the lines of the English poet our prayer: 

O blithe breeze, and O great seas, 
Though ne'er, the present parting o'er, 

On this wide world we meet again, 
Oh, lead us to yon heavenly shore. 

One port, methinks, alike we seek, 
One purpose hold where'er we fare. 

O bounding breeze, O rushing seas, 
At last, at last, unite us there. 



PART IV 



LETTERS FROM ABROAD 



A VISIT TO BETHLEHEM 

BRIGHTEST of all earth's days is one day ; beloved 
all over the world, among all sorts and conditions 
of mankind. Of the gladness of Christmas little children 
speak among their first uttered sentences, and old men 
become young again at the return of this holy, happy 
season. It is the day for gifts and kisses and laughter 
and love and family reunions, the day for joy and peace 
and adoration of Almighty God. In the glory of the 
day ever shines one place preeminent, Bethlehem, where 
was born the infant Saviour. Most natural was it that 
our hearts were beating high Saturday afternoon, March 
15, 1902, when we started in our carriage from the Hotel 
du Pare, Jerusalem, for Bethlehem, six miles away. 
Occasional gusts of fine rain swept over the hills and 
the air was cold, but a light that never was on land or 
sea exalted our hearts. Besides the four tourists who 
had experienced much happiness in studying together 
Jerusalem's sacred sites, we had in our large carriage 
the excellent guide, Elias. Out by the Jaffa Gate we leave 
Jerusalem, passing the ancient Tower of David, going 
down close to the Valley of Hinnom, fateful locality 
dreaded by the ancient Jews and symbolizing to the 
modern world the pangs of future punishment, then, 
ascending the hill, we look back and have a view of 
Jerusalem perhaps only second in excellence to that from 
the Mount of Olives. The macadamized road is admir- 
ably smooth and broad, and as the good horses trot 

193 



194 THE PRECEDING GOD 

swiftly southward, the fields become more inviting with 
growing grass and grain and vineyards and orchards of 
olive trees. We pass many places of traditional and 
present-day interest — "the country house of Caiaphas," 
the ancient tree from which Judas Iscariot is said to have 
hanged himself, the seat where Mary rested on her weary 
journey to Bethlehem, and several churches and con- 
vents. Of all these traditional spots, of the greatest 
and most tender interest is the small edifice known as 
Rachel's Tomb. It is asserted that ever since Christ's 
time this very locality has been considered the place 
where Jacob buried Rachel, the love of his heart, and 
that for many centuries earlier either this spot, or one 
close by, has been believed to be the place of the tomb 
of the fair, true wife of the patriarch. Four miles is 
this sacred memorial from Jerusalem, and yonder, two 
miles away, nestles Bethlehem among the hills. Back 
through the centuries our hearts go, and the old, ever 
young experiences of love and death, of joy and anguish, 
seem to pulse and throb in the green leaves of the ven- 
erable olive tree near Rachel's Tomb. 

Soon upon our vision comes a remarkably fine view of 
Bethlehem and the surrounding country. In the far 
distance is the edge of the wilderness of Judea, nearer 
are the high, mountainous hills, nearer still green fields, 
and still nearer Bethlehem with its stone houses, curious 
towers and balconies, narrow, winding streets, and about 
six thousand inhabitants. The adjacent country seems 
more prosperous and better tilled than anywhere else in 
Judea save the plain of Sharon. Vineyards, meadows, 
olive orchards, terraced hills, tell of patient husbandry 
and remind of the origin of the name of the ancient town, 
Bethlehem, " place of bread." We thought of Bethlehem's 
wonderful history, of how it had existed for thousands of 



A VISIT TO BETHLEHEM 195 

years, of lovely Ruth, of David's romantic career, of Con- 
stantine and the Crusaders, above all, of our blessed 
Lord. Entering the narrow streets of the town, we drive 
at once to the large open space in front of St. Mary's 
church (better known as the Church of the Nativity). 
This large, rambling edifice has been rebuilt, renovated, 
added to many times through the centuries and is said 
to be the most ancient church building in the world. 
Since 1852 the Greek, the Latin, and the Armenian 
churches have each had possession of a part of it, the 
Greek having the largest, most imposing section, and 
the Armenian a little corner which is pitiful in its almost 
ridiculous insignificance. In the Greek church, as we 
entered, a notable service of worship was being cele- 
brated, and for half an hour we listened and watched 
with growing interest. There were the men in the choir 
singing antiphonally with loud fervor, there the clergy 
and incense-bearers coming and going before the altar, 
there the patriarch and other dignitaries in striking vest- 
ments, and presently a boy about twelve or fourteen years 
of age comes forward, and in a clear, ringing voice, 
reads the Scripture lesson. A large audience, including 
more than a hundred children, listens and beholds with 
apparent solemnity and interest. The whole service 
seems full of reality and reverence, and one cannot but 
feel, means much to the people. As we look into the 
eager, wistful faces of these Bethlehem children worship- 
ing in this holy shrine, our longing hearts rise upward 
to One who understands childhood and manhood and 
all of life. 

O, holy Child of Bethlehem ! 

Descend to us, we pray ; 
Cast out our sin, and enter in ; 

Be born in us today. 



196 THE PRECEDING GOD 

We hear the Christmas angels 

The great glad tidings tell ; 
O come to us, abide with us, 

Our Lord Emmanuel. 

Down the dark, winding stairs we go to the cave 
where the sacred spot is marked by a silver star and 
under the star the words, Hie de Virgine Maria Jesus 
Christus natus est. There are many strong reasons 
for believing that this natural grotto was the very place 
where Christ was born. It is one of the best authenti- 
cated of the sacred sites in Palestine. Above the silver 
star shine fifteen lamps, which are divided among the 
three churches sharing the building. A few steps away 
stands a Turkish soldier, gun in hand, to protect the 
sacred spot and, alas for poor human nature, to prevent 
ecclesiastical quarrels which, even here, have in the 
recent past sometimes resulted in bloodshed. Ascending 
the stairs and passing various other places of traditional 
interest, we leave the church and go out by a narrow 
lane to the hillside, whence we behold a splendid land- 
scape of mountains and valleys and plains. In yonder 
fields gentle Ruth gleaned, on those hillsides David be- 
gan his immortal work, and on that plain were the shep- 
herds with their flocks, when came the heavenly vision 
and the angelic message of the new-born Messiah. 

As we walk back to our carriage our hearts are asking : 
" Is it all a dream ? Are we really here in Palestine, in 
Judea, in Bethlehem, at the birthplace of the Saviour?" 
Then, strong and tender and charged with heavenly 
authority come to us again some of Bethlehem's messages. 
God's great love is ever seeking humanity. Christ comes 
to reign in our lives in strange, unexpected ways. In 
most lowly, difficult places of earth the kingdom of 
heaven will surely shine forth. Love, heavenly love, for- 



A VISIT TO BETHLEHEM 197 

evermore, seeks not to receive, but to give out of its 
blessed fulness. It was so at the birth of Christ, it is so 
with God's unceasing bounty and with the daily, hourly 
reenforcement of our spiritual life from the living Christ. 
Then, touched by this celestial love, our hearts should 
be ever pouring out spiritual inspiration and blessing to 
the world. 

Love came down at Christmas, 

Love all lovely, Love Divine; 
Love was born at Christmas, 

Stars and angels gave the sign. 

Love shall be our token, 
Love be yours and love be mine, 

Love to God and all men, 
Love for gift and plea and sign. 



II 



A WINTER JOURNEY TO ITALIAN 

SHORES 

SAID Dr. Samuel Johnson : " No one would go to sea 
unless he was a fool or a madman; for to be on a 
ship is to be in a prison, with the added chance of being 
drowned." But the gruff old English philosopher was 
wrong in this, as he was in some of his other utterances. 
To be on the sea is for some temperaments freedom and 
joy. The soul seems to catch some of the exuberant life 
and liberty of the sea-gulls that follow almost across the 
ocean. We learn to let go and to forget, and to launch 
out toward something nobler in the future. When we 
sailed the last of January, we left New York enfolded in 
ice and snow, but a day's journey carried us into pleasant 
sunlight and temperate atmosphere. 

A little more than a week of sailing brought us to the 
coast of Portugal and up the Tagus River to Lisbon. 
Those green fields and those fair towns on the steep hill- 
sides make a pleasant panorama for the eyes of the 
traveler. We thought of Christopher Columbus and of 
the many romantic sailors and explorers who had gone 
faring forth from those shores. To our ship had come 
wireless messages saying that another revolution had 
broken out in Lisbon, and that the youngest European 
republic was in grave peril. So we eagerly disembarked 
to see the city. All seemed quiet and peaceful, although 
soldiers were everywhere. The uprising had been put 

198 



A JOURNEY TO ITALIAN SHORES 199 

down. Citizens assured us that the republic was firmly 
established. 

Lisbon is remarkable for the magnificence of her ap- 
pearance from the river, her streets rising one above the 
other on precipitous heights. While we saw some win- 
dows in the heart of the city that had recently been broken 
by the bullets of the revolutionists, there was a general 
air of contentment, despite the evidences of picturesque 
poverty. The visitor cannot forget the terrible earth- 
quake of 1755, which destroyed sixty thousand people in 
Lisbon. This was, in some respects, the greatest catas- 
trophe in human history, and it profoundly influenced the 
greatest thinkers of that time, making some of them 
skeptics and others atheists. But there stands Lisbon 
today, smiling and gay, and in one of her crowded streets 
we were glad to find a depositary of the British and 
Foreign Bible Society. The Bible has a message for 
times of earthquakes and of revolutions as well as for 
times of peace, and Portugal seems right now to be a 
promising field for Protestant Christian work. We were 
detained three days at Lisbon by a fierce wind-storm 
which made it impossible for our steamer to cross the 
" bar " dividing the river from the ocean. Our captain, 
making the attempt to put out to sea, struck the sand, 
and was compelled to go back up the river a short dis- 
tance. Other vessels were delayed near us, while a few 
miles away, beyond the bar, other ships were waiting, 
anxious to come into the harbor. We received a new 
illustration of Tennyson's well-known poem, " Crossing 
the Bar." 

A day at Algiers was happily spent visiting the curious 
streets of the older part of the city and watching the 
Arabians, Turks, and Bedouins, the snake-charmers and 
other strange characters. From one of the splendid hotels 



200 THE PRECEDING GOD 

on the heights, where we took tea, we gazed upon one of 
the loveliest panoramas of land and sea in the world. 
The French have made Algiers the capital of the fertile 
province they have taken in Northern Africa, and they 
may in a few decades convert the city into a little Paris. 
Already it is an important port of commerce and a city of 
pleasure, and it ought to be made a strategic center for 
the evangelization of a part of Northern Africa. 

For most travelers Naples is chiefly the place of hurried 
entrance to Italy's glories in her northern cities. They 
hasten through its wonders to other places not so beauti- 
ful or great. But Naples is one of the world's greatest 
cities in historical interest, in the tumultuousness of her 
life today, and in the unrivaled beauty and grandeur of 
her location. Ten years ago we spent a day at Pompeii ; 
yesterday we saw this uncovered city of ancient times 
through the eyes of our little girl, and compared a child's 
impressions with those of a mature mind. The almond 
trees were resplendent in pink blossoms, the flowers were 
everywhere, the birds were singing joyfully, and there 
were the unchanging memorials of sudden and horrible 
death. Field excavations are continually being made and 
new revelations concerning the pleasure-loving life of 
Pompeii eighteen hundred years ago are being brought to 
light. 

Naples was described by a visitor fifty years ago as " a 
paradise inhabited by devils." This is a far more inac- 
curate description now than it was then. Doubtless there 
is much ignorance, superstition, cheating, thieving, and 
uncleanliness here today. Still we see the unaccountable 
cruelty of the Neapolitans to dumb animals. Twice yes- 
terday we saw donkeys knocked to the ground and 
trampled upon. Oh that this patient, suffering burden- 
bearer of so many nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa 



A JOURNEY TO ITALIAN SHORES 201 

could speak! He would bring an arraignment against 
the human race more terrible far than the rebuke of 
Balaam's ass to his master. But Naples is improving. 
There is less harshness here to beasts of burden than 
formerly, and there is a vigorous society for the preven- 
tion of cruelty to animals. The streets are cleaner and the 
water supply is good. Educational opportunities have 
been enlarged. Superstition is waning, though slowly. 
There are fewer beggars and there is much material pros- 
perity. More than half a million people crowd the pictur- 
esque streets. There are not a few churches here where 
Christ is truly preached as the world's Saviour. Toward 
the light Naples is turning her face. Yonder on the side 
of Mount Vesuvius are the memorials of unspeakable sin, 
but the almond trees are in blossom and the birds are 
singing a song of hope. 

Naples, February 16, 1912. 



Ill 

HAPPY DAYS IN SUNNY SICILY 

IT was eight o'clock in the evening when we left Naples 
for Sicily. The steamer was delayed a little by reason 
of the departure of soldiers on another boat for the scene 
of the war in Tripoli. This war seems popular with the 
people, and has aroused new patriotism and national en- 
thusiasm throughout Italy. Our room on the steamer 
was large and comfortable, and the sea was smooth, but I 
lay awake nearly all the night thinking of the Mediter- 
ranean and of the great nations, mighty personalities, and 
tremendous events linked with this wonderful ocean. 
This body of water was to prehistoric people the center 
of the universe ; to David and the Hebrews it was " the 
great deep," whose waves told of the judgments of God. 
On its shores the supreme makers of ancient history 
dwelt. Across its waters sailed the apostle Paul — greatest 
of all travelers — to carry the gospel to Rome and to the 
Western world. And yonder, southward, Sicily was 
beckoning to us. Until recent weeks Sicily had been to us 
little more than a name, suggesting vaguely the Mafia and 
brigandage, lemons, and oranges. But travel is a great 
incentive to the study of geography and of history, and 
after a sojourn of more than two weeks here we have 
learned that few countries in the world are so rich in 
historical interest, natural beauty, and present-day prob- 
lems as Sicily. Long ago Goethe wrote : " Italy without 
Sicily leaves no image in the soul : Sicily is the key to all." 
A later poet has said, " Sicily is the smile of God." More 
202 



HAPPY DAYS IN SUNNY SICILY 203 

recently still an English writer has declared that " Sicily 
is the Ireland of Italy." There is much truth and sug- 
gestiveness in each of these sayings. Though only about 
ten thousand square miles in area — about one-fifth the 
size of New York State — Sicily, by reason of the fertility 
of her soil, the charm of her climate, and her strategic 
location in the center of the Mediterranean, was for many 
centuries the theater of the struggles and activities of the 
great nations of ancient history. Phoenicians, Greeks, 
Carthaginians, Romans, Saracens, Spaniards, Normans, 
held dominion here in turn, and left memorials of their 
genius. To study Sicily is to study the architecture, the 
art, the philosophy, the wars, the poetry, the religion of 
the ages. Here we listen to the words of Theocritus 
and Virgil, of Empedocles and Cicero, and of many others 
who contributed to " the glory that was Greece and the 
grandeur that was Rome." We can never forget our first 
sight of Palermo in the early morning. Bathed in the 
morning light, the city fronts the violet-colored sea and is 
guarded on either side by Monte Pelegrino and Monte 
Catalfano. A rich meadow country, with orchards of 
golden oranges and lemons, with fields of green, and with 
countless almond trees in blossom, surrounds this city of 
three hundred thousand people. No detailed account of 
the chief objects of interest to the visitor in Palermo will 
be given here. Rich memorials, in cathedrals and other 
public buildings, of the Saracens and the Normans are in 
this city, and the mosaic decorations in two of the 
churches are among the finest and most brilliant of the 
kind in the world. In this city Crispi, one of the chief 
statesmen of modern Italy, was born, and here is his tomb. 
Garibaldi's memory is proudly cherished here, and several 
splendid monuments and new streets commemorate his 
valor. It will be remembered that in May, 1860, Gari- 



204 THE PRECEDING GOD 

baldi, with his immortal one thousand soldiers attacked 
Palermo and captured it, the masses of the populace 
rejoicing to receive him. A few months later Sicily be- 
came a part of the new kingdom of Italy. 

The people of Palermo today are an interesting study. 
They are fond of stylish clothing and extravagant in their 
habits. We saw no drunkenness. The people are very 
fond of driving on the Via della Liberta in fine carriages, 
drawn by high-stepping horses, and on this handsome, 
broad street we saw every afternoon a crowded proces- 
sion of equipages, as handsome as could be seen on Fifth 
Avenue in New York. Automobiles are not popular and 
very few are seen here. The cinematograph, or moving- 
picture, shows are numerous, and, we were informed, 
are of a distinctly educational and helpful character. 

On the Sunday we were in Palermo we visited the 
Waldensian church, which has an excellent building, and 
spoke a few words of cheer and greeting. The pastor, 
Rev. D. Bosio, speaks hopefully of the religious situation, 
but says that Protestant work in Sicily is more difficult 
than in other parts of Italy. The American consul, Mr. 
Hernando de Soto, called upon us, and we spent a pleas- 
ant evening together. He says that away from several of 
the cities Sicily has not prospered greatly in recent years, 
but he is hopeful for the future. He is an optimist as to 
Italy, and is a warm admirer of the King and Queen. 
Mr. De Soto is a native of Danville, Kentucky, and has 
been in our Consular Service twenty years. 

The country sections of Sicily, as viewed from the win- 
dows of the railway trains, while picturesque and beau- 
tiful, seem generally infertile and rocky. The rich sur- 
face soil has usually been washed away, and the hillsides 
in their stony desolation remind one of Palestine. Upon 
the faces of the people at the railroad stations is a hungry, 



HAPPY DAYS IN SUNNY SICILY 205 

pathetic look. Multitudes have emigrated to the United 
States and to South America, and many more are fixing 
a longing look upon the Western world. When Tripoli 
becomes a colony of Italy it is hoped that a new outlet 
for the people of Sicily will be found, and that thus Italy 
will not lose so many of her vigorous children. 

Girgenti, where we spent a memorable day, is a thrill- 
ing place for all whose souls are moved by the wonders of 
Greek civilization and art, for here are the remains of six 
remarkable temples erected about five hundred years 
before Christ. Despite the ravages of the centuries and 
the desolations wrought by human hands, these temples 
in their ruins fill the soul with reverent admiration. 
Their location on a series of lofty hills, commanding glori- 
ous views of fertile valley, olive and orange orchards, and 
the smiling blue sea, shimmering in the brilliant sunlight, 
affords a noble background and a marvelous perspective 
for their majestic Doric columns. Around these temples, 
in the golden days of Greek dominion, was gathered a 
city of nearly half a million people. Today the town num- 
bers a population of only about thirty thousand, and its 
boundaries are nearly a mile from the temples. 

The trip from Girgenti to Syracuse requires a day of 
rather hard traveling, but the sights of Syracuse amply re- 
pay a visit. Here was for many decades one of the great- 
est cities of the world, the home of the greatest living 
poets, scientists, statesmen, and warriors. Here the ban- 
ner of European civilization was proudly held high 
against the hordes of Africa. Here a million people lived 
in prosperity. Here to-day is a wretched, fever-smitten 
town of about twenty-five thousand inhabitants dwelling 
on the island a few yards from the mainland. We spent 
two days in a beautiful hotel, surrounded by the most 
wonderful gardens we have ever seen, about a mile from 



206 THE PRECEDING GOD 

the city, and gave nearly every hour to the marvelous 
antiquities near by. Here are extensive catacombs, a 
Roman amphitheater, a Greek theater, the Fountain of 
Arethusa, the vast caverns hewn in the limestone rock 
where political prisoners were kept, and the traditional 
place where Paul preached when he spent three days at 
Syracuse. 

Taormina, where we are spending a week in the famous 
Timeo Hotel, is considered by some travelers the loveliest 
spot in all the world. There are interesting antiquities 
here. The remains of the majestic, rock-hewn theater on 
the top of the mountain fill the beholder with astonish- 
ment. But nature's mingled grandeur and gentleness so 
fill the soul here that man's handiwork is almost forgotten. 
Here are stupendous mountains lifting their leonine heads 
to the sky, and at their feet is the gentle curve of the coast- 
line and the blue sea. Near by is snow-covered Mount 
Etna, keeping watch over all the landscape with serene 
and indescribable grandeur. We are told that in answer 
to a searching question from an old friend as to what he 
most desired to know, the late Frederic W. H. Meyers 
said: "If I could ask the Sphinx one question, and one 
only, and hope for an answer, I think it would be this: 
' Is the universe friendly ? ' " On this radiant spot, and in 
these golden days, and interpreting all the glory of the 
earth and sky and sea by the fuller revelation in Christ 
our Lord, it is not difficult to give a glad affirmative reply 
to the question of the English thinker. 

Taormina, Sicily, March 2, 1912. 



IV 
LETTER FROM ROME 

IT is related that the predecessor of the present Pope, 
receiving a company of visitors to Rome, said 
humorously to one who had been in the city a single 
week, " Doubtless you feel that you know Rome !" To 
another, who had been here a month, he said, " You are 
beginning to know Rome." To a third, who had lived 
in the city a whole year, he declared, " You feel that you 
will never understand Rome." This incident reminds us 
of the advice of a famous teacher to his students that they 
endeavor by a ten-years' residence here to acquire " a 
superficial knowledge " of Rome. Nevertheless, a visit 
of six weeks in Rome is sufficient to give very vivid 
impressions. 

At the very outset we were reminded of the great 
changes and material improvements which had been made 
since we were here ten years ago. Magnificent modern 
buildings, new, broad streets, improved methods of sani- 
tation, a fine system of electric tramcars, beautiful parks, 
new hotels of every variety — these and other signs of 
recent progress meet the eye in every direction. Malaria 
and fever have disappeared, and the mosquito, in itself 
an annoyance and the bearer of the germs of disease, 
has been banished. 

The most splendid of all the recent buildings is the 
great monument to Victor Emmanuel II, which over- 
looks all the edifices of Rome's ancient glories, and may 
be seen from every direction. This immense structure of 

207 



208 THE PRECEDING GOD 

white marble and limestone, costing about ten million 
dollars and with beautiful and elaborate sculptures and 
decorations, commemorates the founding and establish- 
ment of the new united Italian kingdom. Notable ar- 
tistic, literary, and political characteristics of the chief 
sections of Italy are illustrated on it. Part of the interior 
will be used for a National Political Museum, and another 
part will be used for the tombs of the future kings of 
Italy. This stupendous monument to new and united 
Italy symbolizes the material progress, the intellectual 
activity, the spiritual longing, and the religious oppor- 
tunity of the nation today. Despite the enormous ex- 
penditure of money and human life and energy in the war 
with Turkey, great public works of improvement are 
being steadily carried forward by the government. Trade 
is expanding, and it is officially stated that in the last 
twenty years the progress of Italy in the development of 
international commerce has been the greatest of any of 
the nations of Europe. Remarkable advance has been 
made in Italy in educational matters in the last twenty- 
five years. The schools were formerly proverbially poor, 
and there were comparatively few of them. Ignorance 
and superstition were everywhere. Such rapid progress 
has been made in recent years that it is believed that be- 
fore very long there will be few children in all Italy 
unable to read. Today, it is asserted, the school system 
of Northern Italy compares favorably with that of 
Switzerland or France. A new era of religious toleration 
and freedom has come. A Hebrew is mayor of Rome. 
Multitudes here are ready for a simple, evangelical, Scrip- 
tural message. Rome, the capital city, and all Italy seem 
to be on the threshold of a new era of material and intel- 
lectual progress. It is a strategic time for wise and 
aggressive Christian effort. 



LETTER FROM ROME 209 

Despite the activities of the present and the possibilities 
of the future, the past with its thrilling messages is ever 
speaking to the soul of the visitor in Rome. Here are the 
mighty, undying memorials of a stupendous past — ma- 
jestic churches, frowning fortresses, lovely statues, im- 
mortal pictures, colossal ruins. With what mingled pathos 
and power do these speak to the soul ! " Heard melodies 
are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." These old 
ruins, these wonderful churches, these shining marbles 
and gleaming canvases — all seem to witness to man's 
spiritual longing, his struggles Godward and eternity- 
ward. We have thought of Sabatier's words, " Man is 
incurably religious." So I cannot but believe that the 
present religious and intellectual unrest and doubt in 
Italy, and in other parts of the world, will lead to a 
truer faith, a nobler reverence, and a more Christlike 
service. 

The social life in Rome is interesting. Many leaders of 
thought live here, and many visit here. There is a de- 
lightful hospitality. We have enjoyed meeting Elihu Ved- 
der, the famous artist ; Hon T. G. O'Brien, our American 
Ambassador; Dr. Jesse B. Carter, the director of the 
American Classical School ; Doctor Gray, for thirty years 
pastor of the Scotch Presbyterian church ; Doctor Tipple, 
of the American Methodist church. The palace of the Dow- 
ager Queen Margherita is immediately opposite our hotel, 
and we have gazed more than once upon her handsome, 
sad face. In our hotel we have seen the widow and 
daughter of the distinguished novelist, F. Marion Craw- 
ford. It has been a pleasure to meet Mrs. William Buck- 
nell, of Philadelphia, who has been spending the winter 
in Rome with her son-in-law and daughter, the Count and 
Countess Pecorini-Manzoni. Mrs. Bucknell is much 
interested in foreign missions, and is now having built in 



210 THE PRECEDING GOD 

Gauhati, Assam, a church edifice in memory of her 
father, Rev. Dr. William Ward, who was one of the early 
American Baptist missionaries to Assam. 

It has been a great privilege to speak in the Baptist 
church, to address the students in our theological sem- 
inary, and to preach in the American Methodist church. 
Rev. Dr. D. G. Whittinghill, Dr. Everett Gill, Rev. Mr. 
Stuart, and Professor Paschetto are the leaders in our 
Baptist work. There are between thirty-five and forty 
churches or chapels in Italy under their supervision. The 
work of the theological seminary is very encouraging. A 
religious magazine, appealing to the more thoughtful 
among the Italians, has recently been started. A small 
religious paper published every two weeks by our Baptist 
ministers, entitled The Sower, has a circulation of 11,000 
copies, and wields a great and growing influence for evan- 
gelical Christianity. The great need of our Baptist work 
in Rome, as it seems to a visitor, is a new church edifice 
in a commanding strategic center of the city, with services 
both in English and Italian. Such a bold forward move- 
ment would inspire and strengthen our work (and all 
evangelical Christian work) throughout Italy. 

The founder of our American Baptist mission work in 
this country was Rev. Dr. George B. Taylor, who came 
here as a missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention 
in 1873. He was a beautiful, heroic soul. Learned, keenly 
intellectual, persuasive in eloquence, he loved the Saviour 
with a reverent devotion, and for thirty-four years 
labored for his glory here in Italy. He did a wonderful 
work, and laid deep and broad the foundations in times of 
extraordinary difficulty and danger. More than once in 
the early days he risked his life. Recently we visited his 
grave in the beautiful Protestant Cemetery near the old 
wall of the city. Near by were the graves of Keats and 



LETTER FROM ROME 211 

Shelley, the famous English poets. The sun was shining 
with unusual radiance, the flowers were in bloom, and the 
thrushes were singing in such a flood of liquid melody 
that it seemed as if their hearts were overflowing with joy. 

Rome, Italy, April 25, 1912. 



ROME— THE HILL-TOWNS— FLORENCE 

i 

WHEN we left Rome by the fast train for the hill- 
towns of Umbria a strange sadness filled our hearts. 
It seemed as if we were leaving a home of the soul. The 
six weeks spent in the Eternal City had gently and 
strongly bound our spirits to her. Some travelers find 
Florence more charming ; others, like ourselves, are much 
happier in Rome than in the bright and cheerful city on 
the banks of the Arno. As with the choice of friends, 
so is it with one's affection for localities, largely a matter 
of individual sentiment and also a kind of mysterious, 
predestined affinity of soul. Rome with her wide spaces, 
lofty hills, exquisite gardens, palaces of art, massive 
ruins, majestic churches, with her messages concerning 
the supreme turning-points in human history, her pathos 
and tragedy and glory, her buoyant hopes for Italy, and 
with the deep, reverberating call of the eternal and the 
divine throbbing through everything — Rome will not 
cease to beckon to our souls while life lasts. J. A. 
Symonds in one of his poems well brings out the power 
of this great mother of cities and of nations to teach 
and chasten the soul: 

Yea, from the very soil of silent Rome 
You shall grow wise ; and walking, live again 
The lives of buried peoples, and become 
A child by right of that eternal home, 
Cradle and grave of empires, on whose walls 
The sun himself subdued to reverence falls. 
212 



ROME— FLORENCE 213 

In a previous letter about our experiences in Rome no 
mention was made of the Campagna and, inasmuch as the 
majority of visitors to Rome fail to give any time to this 
remarkable district, it seems well to say a few words about 
its importance and interest. As is well known, the 
Campagna is the wild and uncultivated plain which sur- 
rounds Rome for about fifteen or twenty miles in every 
direction. In the midst of this awe-inspiring wilderness 
sits Rome like an island in a sea. No one who spends 
even a week in Rome should fail to give at least a day 
to the Campagna in a carriage drive or a trip by train 
or electric tramway to Frascati or Tivoli or to some other 
point of interest. This mighty plain was the " Latium " 
of antiquity and from it sprang the world-conquering 
Latin race. Here was developed a rich and complex 
civilization, here were crowded villages and cities and a 
teeming population. Beneath these untilled fields rich 
treasures await the archaeologist. Now for many miles 
comparative silence and desolation reign here. The soil 
is rich, the tall grass grows luxuriantly, and almost the 
entire region is given over to cattle-raising. The herds- 
men and shepherds live on the Alban Hills and the other 
mountain ranges. The whole wilderness is said to be 
dangerous for human habitation because of malaria and 
fever. For some centuries efforts have been made to 
banish the malaria, but with little success. Meanwhile 
in the springtime the Campagna is radiant with flowers 
and vocal with singing birds. One day we rode for two 
hours on the top of a tramway car to Frascati and, from 
the side of the Alban Mountains, rejoiced in glorious 
views of the open country with Rome in the center and 
the snow-capped mountains and the Mediterranean Sea 
on either side. From Frascati we climbed, panting yet ex- 
ultant, up the steep mountain to the site of ancient Tus- 



214 THE PRECEDING GOD 

culum. Here we saw the ruins of the house where 
Cicero lived and where he wrote some of his immortal 
orations and letters. 

Another day was given to the Campagna in a trip to 
Tivoli and Hadrian's Villa. The ride of eighteen miles 
each way continually impressed one with the mingled 
richness and poverty, magnificence and melancholy of 
this great plain of fertile yet desolate country. Tivoli 
itself is a city of about fifteen thousand people, with a 
unique location on the mountainside, and it has been a 
popular summer resort for Roman nobles since the time 
of the Emperor Augustus. Of the many villas there, the 
" Villa D'Este " is the most splendid in its wealth of 
gardens, terraces, fountains, and cypress. It is worth a 
trip from Rochester to Tivoli to listen to the music of 
the falling water of these fountains, to stroll beneath 
the cypress trees, to gaze from the terrace across the 
Campagna to distant Rome, whose church spires are 
catching the light of the midday sun. Hadrian's Villa, 
a few miles away, is the ruins of the buildings erected by 
the Roman Emperor in his last years to represent the 
artistic and architectural glories of the world which had 
interested him in his travels. These ruins cover nearly 
two hundred acres, they have given to the museums in 
Rome many of their finest treasures, and by their im- 
mensity and grandeur they stagger the imagination of the 
visitor today. 

Departing from Rome for Perugia, we left the train at 
Assisi and gave four hours to some of the scenes linked 
with St. Francis, whose life is so appealing in its loving 
helpfulness and simple faith to good people of all creeds 
and churches. The record of his career by Sabatier has 
in recent years given him a fresh hold upon human hearts. 
Born in 1182, after a reckless and sinful boyhood he gave 



ROME— FLORENCE 215 

up everything for the glory of Christ and the service of 
the destitute and sick and sinning. He took vows of 
absolute surrender to poverty, chastity, loving service for 
humanity, and devotion to the will of Christ, and he seems 
to have kept these vows as few have done since the 
times of the apostles. Withal he had a gracious humor 
and a keen sense of the beauty and charm of this present 
world. He loved the trees and flowers and birds, but 
chiefly loved Christ and Christ's little ones. His life 
was a sweet and heroic poem, and its melody seems still 
to vibrate in the streets of Assisi and over the green 
fields and through the olive orchards surrounding the 
town. A few steps from the railway station is the ma- 
jestic Church of Santa Maria Degli Angeli, erected in 
1575, over the cell in which St. Francis used to pray and 
where he died. Two miles away, up the mountainside, is 
Assisi, a town of about six thousand people. Its chief 
glory is, of course, the famous double church adorned by 
Giotto's frescoes and containing the tomb of St. Francis. 
The wonderful views of the country around, however, the 
observation of the people, who are exceedingly poor and 
primitive and simple-hearted, and the memory of St. 
Francis engrossed our thoughts more than the churches 
and the monastery. Somehow Francis seems to encour- 
age us by his spirit and personality more than any others 
of the " saints." He was so human and gentle and kind 
and loved all the lovable things of earth and was not 
embittered by the unlovely people he met. His spirit 
seemed to come very close to us during those four hours 
spent at Assisi. It was good to be there. 

Perugia is only about twenty miles away, and its lofty 
towers may be seen from Assisi on a clear day. We 
spent five never-to-be-forgotten days in this city, which is 
builded like an eagle's nest on the top of one of the highest 



216 THE PRECEDING GOD 

hills in the heart of ancient Umbria. Perugia is re- 
markable for three things — its marvelous location, com- 
manding the most glorious views of the Apennine Moun- 
tains and valleys ; its carefully preserved walls and towers 
and other antiquities, affording rare treasures for his- 
torical and archaeological study, and its rich collection of 
the paintings of Perugino and Pinturicchio. 

We have spent three happy weeks in Florence. This 
city does not thrill us as did Rome, but who can visit 
here without feeling a new warmth in the heart, a fresh 
kindling of the intellectual life? Florence is dignified, 
serene, and happy in her consciousness of past achieve- 
ments. Whatever may have been her fierce struggles in 
the times of the Medici and of Dante and of Savonarola, 
there is the atmosphere of tranquillity and complacent 
attainment here today. Even the " burning problems " in 
the business, social, and religious life of most of the 
other large cities of the world today seem to awaken little 
interest in Florence. It seems to be chiefly a city proud 
and happy in its glorious achievements in the past in 
literature, politics, and, most of all, art. It loves to be 
called "The Athens of' Italy." Perhaps the world greatly 
needs at least one such city, with its ample leisure and rich 
serenity and inspiring memories and unrivaled treasure- 
houses of art. While here we have thought much of 
the Brownings, and three days ago was the centenary of 
the birth of Robert Browning. Everybody knows of the 
great poet's love for this land suffusing so many of his 
writings in a golden light. Did he not write 

Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it " Italy"? 

He and Mrs. Browning especially loved Florence and 
long lived here, and here Mrs. Browning was buried. 



ROME— FLORENCE 217 

On the anniversary of Browning's birth we visited Mrs. 
Browning's grave in the English Cemetery and plucked 
from the grave a red rose and a white rose, and thanked 
God for the two immortal singers who, believing in love 
and duty and God and heaven, 

Never doubted clouds would break, 
Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would 

triumph, 
Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, 
Sleep to wake. 

Florence, May 10, 1912. 



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